Massive fire reaches Utah homes

Erin Alberty, Jeremiah Stettler and Roxana Orellana in the Salt Lake Tribune: …At least 1,400 homes had been evacuated as of midnight and some had caught fire, said emergency responders who descended on Herriman from across the valley and pushed through crowds of onlookers.

…The blaze started during a National Guard training session when a spark from a soldier’s round ignited dry brush, said Utah National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Hank McIntire. “They knew immediately and they got on it right away,” but did not have enough manpower and equipment to contain the fire, McIntire said.

From Camp Williams, the fire moved into Arnold’s Hollow of Rose Canyon and jumped over a dirt road that had previously acted as a barrier on Camp Williams’ northern border at Black Ridge, said Unified Fire Authority Capt. Brad Taylor. Bulldozers were digging up fire breaks to the fire’s east to keep it from spreading into the valley, but Taylor said they would not be effective until the winds die down….

The red dot shows the location of Herriman, Utah. Adapted from Wikipedia's UT county maps by Seth Ilys. Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License