Elberta • In the couple of decades Daniel Rosenbaum has lived in the mining town of Eureka, wildfires have threatened it 13 times. Residents would gather on a road outside town and watch the plumes of brown and black smoke billow over the East Tintic Mountains.

The blaze that rolled over the mountains Saturday night was different. Through his living room window, Rosenbaum and his five children, ages 3 to 16, watched the Iron Fire’s flames crest over the ridge.

“I said if it made it to a certain point, that’s when I was going to start packing up,” said Rosenbaum, 35, who lives on the south side of Main Street. “By the time I had anything in the car, it was over the mountain completely. We watched as I think it was a cellphone tower that went up, and the flames were huge. It was huge.

“By the time we made it out, it was like living in a horror movie. It was a full-on nightmare.”

Two days later, the terror of evacuation had given way to uncertainty.

Most of Eureka’s nearly 700 residents had been told their homes were still standing, thanks to the firefighters who had largely protected the town. But they still couldn’t return, leaving families scattered across central Utah, desperate for information about when they could go back.

“All we want,” Rosenbaum said, “is we just want to go home.”

That is a priority for the Great Basin Incident Management team, which as of Monday morning is coordinating firefighting efforts for the Iron Fire, said spokesperson Toby Weed.

“Safety is our No. 1 priority,” Weed said. “Right after that is getting people back home.”

The fire took a turn for the worse Monday. Speaking to the media around 2 p.m., Weed said firefighters were seeing “extreme fire behavior” due to temperatures in the 90s and high winds. More than 400 people from around the United States were working to stop the fire, he said. Still, it had grown to nearly 25,000 acres and remained 0% contained.

Winds were pushing the fire to the northeast, and Weed said Elberta residents should be in “Ready” mode, according to Utah’s wildfire action plan. The first of the three modes, it means residents should be on the lookout for signs the fire is advancing toward them and begin gathering the items they want to take in case of evacuation.

Eureka, however, appears to be in the clear. Weed said firefighters had established a stronghold there and that none of the structures there is currently endangered. Nonetheless, fire officials who spoke at a community meeting Monday night in Santaquin said the fire could still wrap around and attack the town from the south. They said they would not meet about allowing residents back into their homes until at least Wednesday afternoon.

Rosenbaum, his mother and dozens of friends and neighbors spent all of Monday on the lawn outside the Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Elberta, where the Red Cross had set up a shelter. They arrived early Monday morning, more hungry for information than the boxes of snacks and lunches provided. Ultimately, though, they got most of their updates through social media apps — some more helpful than others.

Rosenbaum recalled his brother in Provo phoning him in a panic after he’d watched a video purportedly showing Eureka buildings on fire.

“We had so many people posting false information, saying stuff was burnt down,” he said. “So we were all freaking out Saturday night. No one’s been able to sleep.”

Weed advised following Utah Fire Info on Facebook or Instagram or visiting InciWeb online for updates. Yet Utah Department of Transportation live feeds and videos from residents’ security cameras have provided some of the deepest troves of information. Eureka resident Bree Lynn Skinner, 35, said her aunt and uncle used the speaker on their Ring device to thank firefighters while they were protecting their home.

Like Rosenbaum, Skinner had become accustomed to wildfires eating away at the hills and prairies around Eureka. She said her biggest fear was one coming into town. So, she has what she calls a “pinkbook” filled with marriage and birth certificates and other important documents ready to go.

“We’ve drilled it,” she said.

Still, rounding up her four kids, six bunnies, three cats, two bearded dragons and two dogs took precious time. And there wasn’t much to begin with, Skinner said. She noted that residents were put in “Set” mode — the second step in Utah’s wildfire action plan, denoting people should begin packing up their vehicles — at 7:44 p.m. Saturday. That switched to the “Go” evacuation mode just 24 minutes later.

When they finally left, she said the flames lit up the outline of the mountain. Ash was falling like snowflakes on the windshield. And the air was so thick with smoke that she couldn’t see cars on the road ahead of her unless they had their emergency lights on.

“It was so hectic,” she said.

A few residents have gotten to go behind the police lines, escorted by Juab County Sheriff Sgt. Don Beese to pick up prescriptions or pets that they’d been unable to collect. Beese said the town looks mostly untouched, though livestock and pets were in need of water. At Monday’s meeting, Eureka town officials said they have been regularly feeding and watering animals left behind.

The residents are eager to get back to those animals and to their lives. But their ordeal isn’t over yet.

Still, Rosenbaum said something good could still come from this fire. Eurekans are a “stubborn” bunch, he said, so he expects they’ll be bullish in their recovery from the fire — and maybe become a closer community because of it.

“They’ll all band together and everything,” he said.

Skinner added, “They already have.”