Fire officials report the 361-acre Dikker Hill fire is entirely contained as of 6 p.m. Sunday, July 28. Containment describes how much of the fire’s perimeter is secure, not how much land is still burning.
Mike Eriksson from the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands said the fire will be managed entirely by local crews going forward, and now firefighters will mostly be monitoring the site.
“It’ll probably just be an engine coming up here once or twice a day,” he said. “They might come out in the afternoon, get up on one of those ridge tops and look at some of the areas where we had some concerns and make sure there’s no smoke.”
He said rain over the weekend helped crews get the blaze under control. That enabled firefighters to decrease the fire’s severity classification.
Four helicopters, two hand crews, three bulldozers and 10 engines were called in when the fire was reported just after 4 p.m. July 24. Eriksson said most of those resources are no longer needed.
Firefighters from the Salt Lake area and a statewide task force helped significantly increase containment over the weekend. By the end of the weekend, they were able to turn the fire over to local crews for monitoring.
Eriksson urged residents to be cautious as the hot, dry summer continues.
“The next two or three months’ long-term forecasts are supposed to be staying hot and dry through August, September and October, which means we might have this extended fall fire season,” he said. “And the less human-caused ones, the happier our firefighters are going to be.”
A situation report released by Summit County emergency managers July 29 revealed a power line spark caused the fire. It damaged six power poles in all, but no structures.
