Mammoth Fire Burns Mobile Home, Two Cars In Juab County
Jul 8, 2020, 11:34 PM | Updated: 11:36 pm
MAMMOTH, Utah – A brush fire quickly spread in Mammoth and burned a trailer home, two cars and two sheds as wildfires around the state continued to start at a blistering pace.
Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands fire warden Chris Lewis said firefighters receive a call at about 2:45 p.m.Wednesday and arrived to find the unoccupied home burning, with the fire pushing toward the north.
Cory Hills said it appeared the fire originated across the road to the south of his property.
“I was freakin’ out bad,” Hills said. “I just was taking my water trailer and hosing it all down.”
Hills said the 2.8-acre fire could have spread to his house had it reached his sheds, which are full of firewood.
Fire crews respond to the Mammoth Fire in Juab County.
“It was scary,” Hills said. “It was all scary.”
With firefighters responding from as far away as Nephi, Hills said neighbors and members of the Eureka community scrambled to the area to help.
“Everybody in town came together, came down with their tractors, ran fire breaks — that’s really what stopped it all before the fire department got here,” Hills said.
Hills said fighting the fire was extra challenging because Mammoth does not have running water. He said a local company brought water trucks to help supply the fire trucks.
Lewis said it was good that the progress of the fire was halted relatively quickly because the blaze likely would have prompted evacuations in Eureka had it continued north over the hillside.
“It very well could have got over that hill and taken out stores, housing — (it) could have taken out a lot,” Hills added.
Earlier in the day, a video circulated by the Utah FFSL stated that so far in 2020 there had been 644 wildfire starts in Utah, compared to 221 last year and 409 starts in 2018.
Of those 644 starts, firefighters said 520, or 82 percent of the total, were human-caused.
Fire crews said the cause of the Mammoth Fire was under investigation, but neighbors already suspected a human origin.
Lewis urged people to be extremely careful outdoors in the hot, dry and often windy conditions.
“It doesn’t take a whole lot to start a fire,” Lewis said. “The fires are getting up and running awfully quick.”
