Beulah wildfire in High Uintas could be a ‘long-duration’ event, Forest Service says

KAMAS — U.S. Forest Service officials are bracing for what they say could be “long-duration fire” in the High Uintas wilderness.

The Beulah Fire has now burned 2,953 acres since igniting in Summit County on Thursday and remains 0% contained. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Great Basin Incident Management Team No. 4, a complex incident management team, took over firefighting operations this week, after a state team had taken over initial firefighting duties. Nearly 250 personnel are assigned to battle the fire, which is growing because of the dry conditions in the region.

Crews are continuing their work to protect Hinckley Boy Scout Camp structures, which are within the fire’s vicinity. Some firefighters are also reviewing the Christmas Meadows area for any “potential impacts,” Great Basin officials wrote in a fire update report on Monday.

They note that “extreme beetle kill” had already killed off many of the trees in the fire zone, leaving the area “ripe for a stand-replacing event,” which is a fire that takes out an entire forest and prepares the land for future regrowth. It has combined with the extreme drought conditions that have now extended to the Uinta Mountains, making it easier for the fire to spread.

Firefighters expect it could burn for some time due to the dry conditions across the region, unless there’s a shift in weather patterns, Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest officials added on social media. Great Basin officials currently estimate full fire containment may not be reached until the end of September.

Mostly dry conditions are forecast for the first half of the week across the state, while temperatures also increase. The National Weather Service points out that temperatures will return to 5 degrees above the seasonal normal by Wednesday, raising temperatures to near 100 degrees along the Wasatch Front.

However, Utah could also see rain in this week’s forecast. Some small pop-up showers are possible in the Uinta Mountains on Tuesday and Wednesday before more potential rain spreads out across other parts of the state later this week, said KSL meteorologist Matt Johnson.

Weather models indicate a shift in patterns potentially by Thursday, allowing for monsoonal moisture to reach Utah over the last few days of the workweek.

“We could see maybe some slight rain chances, but a slight rain chance for this summer is something,” he said.

He adds that it could help firefighters battling fires after weeks of hot temperatures and low relative humidity levels, as long as the change in patterns doesn’t welcome in more dry lightning.

Containment increases on other active fires

Meanwhile, crews continue to gain ground as they battle the state’s largest fire of the season — despite the of lack of rain.

Containment of the Monroe Canyon Fire has now reached 36%, up 23 percentage points from a week ago. Fire growth was also nowhere near as severe as it was two weeks ago. The fire has now burned 71,856 acres since July 13, burning a little more than 9,100 acres since Aug. 4. The fire burned nearly 40,000 acres during the previous week.

More than 1,300 personnel remain assigned to battling the fire. Some crews are monitoring “fire activity” areas by Water Canyon and Rock Canyon, seeking to suppress new growth. Others are working to knock down flames in the Second Hand Left Fork and near Glenwood Mountain, according to Great Basin Incident Management Team No. 2 officials, who are now overseeing firefighting operations.

Several other crews are working to bolster and extend containment of the fire, including structure protection work in the communities that experienced evacuations because of the fire.

The Big Springs Fire, which broke out near Skull Valley in Tooele County over the weekend, is now 30% contained. It has burned about 1,486 acres since Saturday, according to the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands.