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A grass fire in Provo on Wednesday came close to three homes before being extinguished, but eight fires remain active across the state.
Provo Fire & Rescue tweeted that the grass fire was started by sparks from a lawnmower that hit a rock. FOX 13 reported that homes in the area along Palisades Drive were evacuated before the flames were put out.
Two blazes, the Mammoth Fire near St. George and the MM17 Fire near Levan, totaled almost 850 acres together and were recently extinguished.
The National Interagency Fire Center’s National Wildland Preparedness Level, which measures national wildfire activity and ensures suppression resources, increased to Level 4 — the second-earliest it’s hit that level since 1990. Level 4 was reached on June 10 in 2002.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, this level involves “three or more geographic areas experiencing large, complex wildfires requiring IMTs (incident management teams),” with areas competing for fire suppression resources and about 60 percent of the country’s wildland firefighting personnel committed to incidents.
There were 66 fires last week in Utah with 422 total wildfire starts for the year, according to the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands’ Wednesday update. Approximately 57,245 acres have burned so far this fire season, and 23,000 of those acres were burned due to human ignitions — with 88% of the wildfires this year being human-caused.
The Flatt Fire, which started on June 18 in Iron County due to lightning and caused evacuations in Enterprise, is at 70% containment after burning 14,379 acres. The Morgan Canyon Fire in Tooele County, caused by a plane crash that killed two people, is at 459 acres with zero containment, and all roads, trails and trailheads on National Forest System land in the Stansbury Mountain Ridge are closed. Fire managers will provide a community update on the Morgan Canyon Fire on Thursday at 7 p.m.
The Bennion Creek Fire in Utah County and the Bear Fire in Carbon County are at 94% and 93% containment, respectively, according to Utah Fire Info. The Bennion Creek Fire has burned 8,313 acres and caused closures on Bennion Ridge Road, Bear Ridge Road, Starvation Road and Fish Creek Trail for firefighter safety. The Bear Fire is at 12,170 acres and is in “mop-up and patrol status.”
The lightning-caused Horsecorn Fire in Uintah County was at 662 acres and 45% containment according to the latest update from the Bureau of Indian Affairs Forestry and Wildland Fire Uintah & Ouray Agency.
The Sego Fire in Grand County, which also was caused by lightning, is at 85 acres with zero containment. The Deer Springs Fire in Kane County, also at zero containment, is estimated at 223 acres.
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