Milford Flat fire

Utah’s Largest Fire Ever 0% Contained After 3 Days

By Christian Probasco, 7-09-07

Part of the haze you may observe over your city today will no doubt have originated from the Milford Flat fire in central Utah.  The lightning-caused fire traveled 40 miles in its first 24 hours and currently covers over 300,000 acres, making it Utah’s largest on record.

Officials were not prepared when the fire raced up to and then crossed highway I-15. Two motorcyclists, Roy and Mary Ann Redmon, were killed after they pulled over in the dense smoke that clouded the highway.  They were struck from behind by a Subaru Outback and thrown into traffic, and then hit by a truck. 

Erin Denton, driving her two children, ages 2 and 4, back to Los Angeles, was stopped by traffic south of Fillmore as a crowd of motorists climbed a nearby hill to get a better view.  “I kept waiting for the police to show up and tell me what to do,” she said, in a Salt Lake Tribune article.

Then the onlookers sprinted down the hill with smoke rising behind them.  Truck drivers unhitched their trailers and traffic spun around en masse and raced for daylight.

“It was just panic—absolute, breathtaking panic,” said Denton. 

“This fire has been extremely stubborn.  It has basically been doing what it wants.  There is no real moving fire front,” said Mike Melton, state fire manager for several central Utah counties, as quoted in another Salt Lake Tribune article by Nate Carlisle and Nathan C. Gonzalez.

The fire has destroyed several vehicles, a dozen outbuildings and at least one home, and is threatening several towns along I-15.  Firecrews are arriving from all over the West to fight it.

According to Melton, the Milford Flat fire will “probably become the number one priority in the nation.”

Here in Fountain Green, about an hour and a half north and east of the blaze, the smoke has cast a gray pall over the sky for the last couple of days.  In the evenings, the sun doesn’t so much set as just dim into a weak white dot and then blink out. 

Highway I-15 from Cove Fort south to Beaver remains closed to traffic, as does I-70 from I-15 to highway 89, where crews are currently setting backfires. 

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