This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
While exhausted and smoke-smeared, crews battling nearly 21,000 acres of flames had reason to smile Friday morning: After a week of being thwarted by flareups, they had reached 100 percent containment of southwestern Utah's obstinate Baboon Wildfire.
Quelling the blaze ended a series of battles with major wildfires that began June 3 with the human-caused Lost Lake Fire, which burned 2,075 acres on Boulder Mountain in Wayne County.
The Baboon Fire was sparked by lightning on July 20 about six miles north of Minersville, and it had been 95 percent contained for since mid-week. Undermanned and with only periodic drops of fire retardant and water available as resources were needed elsewhere, it was up to just 40 firefighters to finally bring the Baboon blaze to heel.
Along with tinder-dry brush, pinyon and juniper fuels, gusting winds and tough, remote terrain, crews had to deal with the unpredictability of smoldering hot spots suddenly find new life. On Saturday, crews were surprised when a tree burning inside the fire lines "torched," showering sparks on tinder-dry vegetation outside the containment barriers. The fire had blackened an additional 1,700 acres before lines were reestablished.
Finally, the battle narrowed down to one last, stubborn patch of flames on the fire's southeast border Thursday and early Friday. Progress was painfully slow due to "steep, rocky terrain [that was] especially tough to get to for our crews," Fire Information Officer Nick Howell said.
No major fire were burning in Utah on Friday. But the Interagency Fire Center reports that we are just mid-way through the wildfire season, and thus far it been one of the busiest summers in years.
As of Friday, more than 600 wildfires had been reported with nearly 393,000 acres burned.
While most of those blazes have been small fires on five acres or less, the total has included several recently contained, large blazes such as the nearly 108,000-acre Clay Springs Fire near Fishlake National Forest; the 48,038-acre Seeley Fire in the Manti-La Sal National Forest; the 47,384-acre Wood Hollow Fire in Sanpete County; and the 19,865-acre Wolf Den Fire in Uintah County.