Fire’s first look: Images from inside the Yellow Lake Fire

Light filters through the smoke along Route 35 in the heart of the Yellow Lake Fire on Oct. 8, 2024. Photo: Marina Knight // TownLift

Fire officials took TownLift on a drive through the Yellow Lake Fire, Tuesday to get the media's first look at the area where over 19,000 acres have burned

PARK CITY, Utah – On Tuesday morning officials working on the Yellow Lake Fire escorted TownLift through the affected area along Route 35 from the incident headquarters in Francis, high up and over through the smoldering forest to the edge of the fire on the other side near the community of Hanna.

The landscape was strangely silent and pockets of thick, rising smoke between the trees, especially where the sunlight was filtering in, was eerie – like a singed version of a total solar eclipse.

At one point a large coyote ran across the road and up through the ash covered forest leaving a cloudy trail as she ran through the fine, chalky ash.

The Yellow Lake Fire is now the biggest fire the state of Utah has seen this year, currently burning at 19,903 acres and 10% containment. Officials say tomorrow at 7 a.m. a new Type 2 CIMT will be taking over management of the fire. A bigger team will be able to order more resources more quickly as crew work toward full suppression of the human-caused fire.

Brian Trick, public information officer for the Yellow Lake Fire and an fire ecologist for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest, said so far the fire has cost $7M and it would not be out of the question to spend $10M or more in total on suppression of the Yellow Lake Fire.