The Yellow Lake Fire sparked 10 miles up state Route 35 from Francis, across the Wasatch County line, Sept. 28, 2024.
According to Ken Verboncoeur, deputy ranger for the Heber-Kamas Ranger District, it was the highest priority fire in the United States in October, around the time the California Interagency Incident Management took command.
“At the peak, we had 889 wildland firefighters and support personnel, including aviation support, assigned to the fire,” Verboncoeur said. “That's a pretty significant effort.”
Compared to the ongoing blazes around Los Angeles, the Yellow Lake Fire was remote. Almost 10 times the number of firefighters are responding to Southern California, where the first fire sparked Jan. 7, quickly spreading and multiplying.
The response includes resources from Park City, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
Back in Utah, Verboncoeur said the 33,000-acre Yellow Lake Fire was double the size of the next biggest wildfire in the state last year.
It was accidentally caused by logging equipment, Verboncoeur said. It’s still unclear whether the logger will have to pay restitution. KPCW is awaiting the U.S. Forest Service final investigative report.
Click here for the U.S. Forest Service's burned area report on the Yellow Lake Fire.
After a forest service engine responded to reports of smoke on that first Friday in September, the fire quickly grew, enjoying dry vegetation, higher-than-average temperatures and high winds.
Verboncoeur said it made a two-mile run on Sunday and a five-mile run the following Friday. A day later, winds reversed and pushed it eight miles toward state Route 35.
“The fire can create its own weather and throw out what we call ‘spotting,’ where it's pushing fire out ahead of where you think it is on the ground,” he said. “It's throwing out embers and starting fires out ahead of it.”
He said the Yellow Lake Fire was spotting up to a mile away from the main blaze.
Eventually the fire developed a doughnut shape. In the eye of the storm were piles of timber firefighters worked to protect.
“Whenever we had an opportunity, when we could do so safely, we tried to coordinate to get some movement in there where the logger could load up some of those log decks and take those out,” Verboncoeur said.
Wetter, cooler weather rolled in by the end of October, the beginning of the end of the Yellow Lake Fire.
The forest service said 442 structures were threatened with priority given to life and then property.
The 12 different evacuation zones covered mostly recreational areas and seasonal cabins.
No structures were lost in the fire, Verboncouer said, and fire crews reported only minor injuries.
The forest service assessed how severely soils were burned and says less than 1% of the 33,000 acres sustained “high” burn severity; 78% of the area sustained a “moderate” to “low” burn, and the rest was “very low” or “unburned.”
The mostly low and moderate burn bodes well for future flood and landslide dangers, according to the forest service. However, the loss of vegetation likely means erosion will be a threat to structures near the burn scar.
The report says new trees are already sprouting in the burn area, but it could take 3 to 5 years for grasses and shrubs to recover.
Post-fire activities include watching for noxious weeds, monitoring the Provo River’s water quality and mitigating additional spring runoff on some trails and roads.
Verboncoeur said part of the area remains closed even while it’s covered in snow. The closure area has shrunk substantially since the height of the fire, and he said it may shrink again this month.
