The Beulah Fire sparked Aug. 7 and is burning on the north slope of the Uinta Mountains in Summit County’s High Uintas Wilderness. Fire spokesperson Erin Hanczyk [Han-check] said it’s about seven and a half miles southeast of the Bear River Ranger Station along Mirror Lake Highway.
As of Friday, the fire is 48% complete. Hanczyk said the percentage speaks to how much work has been done by crews on the ground.
“This takes into account four different objectives, which include full suppression efforts, confinement strategies, point protection or protection of structures or values at risk, and then also staff or crews here who are doing monitoring efforts as well,” she said on KPCW’s “The Local News Hour” Friday.
Progress to stop fires is normally by containment, but Hanczyk said due to the remote location and steep terrain, crews can’t be directly on the fire's edge.
So, the over 600 crewmembers are instead securing the perimeter farther away from the fire and using natural barriers like roadways and rivers to help stop its spread. Five helicopters, almost 20 fire engines and 2 dozers are also supporting suppression efforts.
“If the fire were to start running or spreading quickly, these barriers and lines are in place to hopefully hold that fire,” Hanczyk said.
According to a press release, crews continue to hold the fire line on the west side in the East Fork of the Bear River and the ridgeline above Lorena Lake. Firefighters were mopping up the area Friday.
Progress also continues on constructing an indirect contingency line along Tokewanna Ridge. The line would prevent the fire from spreading to the east.
Crews on the east side are continuing point protection work on the Tie Hack cabins. Fire officials report heavy equipment will finish up work on contingency lines near Fish Lake and Elizabeth Pass early next week.
Hanczyk said there are no significant risks to populated areas.
“The fire is pretty slow-moving right now due to the cloud cover and the precipitation that we've been getting, it's kind of been in and out of active fire activity,” she said. “There's always potential risk to populated areas should dry weather come back and the fire decides to run. So we've been doing a lot of structure protection and readiness messaging for areas like Christmas Meadows.”
The Summit County Sheriff's Office encourages residents to sign up for emergency alerts in case of evacuation notices. A full list of Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest closures is available here.
The cause of the Beulah Fire remains under investigation.
