Yellow Lake Fire. Photo: Wasatch Fire District

Hunters and recreationists must leave

UPDATE: 12:05 p.m. – Additional areas previously set as “ready” for evacuation are now a go. The new evacuation order is for a large area of wilderness west of the fire depicted in the map below.

Areas under evacuation orders are shown in light red. (Watch Duty)

SUMMIT AND WASATCH COUNTY – A large hunting and recreation area in the Uintas, both on the north and south side of the Mirror Lake Highway is now under mandatory evacuation orders from Summit County and Utah Fire officials as the blaze consuming a large and growing swath of the Uinta-Wasatch Cache National Forest continues to grow.

The evacuation area is along the Mirror Lake Highway (Hwy 150) between the Yellow Pine Trailhead at Mile Marker 6 and the Highline Trail at Mile Marker 35.

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The Mirror Lake Highway remains open but a closure is likely. Check UDOT for up-to-date information.

A map of the Yellow Lake Fire and the evacuations currently in place. Darker red shows the fire itself and light red areas are being evacuated and are closed for recreation of any kind. (Watch Duty)

“Please gather your belongings and leave the area immediately,” the orders read.

On Thursday fire officials called for evacuation of the south side of Hwy 150 and anticipated closure of the north side as erratic fire behavior grew. Sierra Hellstrom, Public Information Officer for the U.S. Forest Service said the fire could still progress north, toward Murdoch basin and areas nearby.

“We are looking at a forest closure there so we can avoid what happened the other day, where we had recreationists and hunters in the Granddaddy Lakes area, and then the fire progressed so quickly that we had to go in. We didn’t even get into a ready, set go phase. We had to go straight to go in that area. So because it’s a lot of wilderness and there are a lot of places without cell phone service, so people can’t get notifications and updates, the forest and the fire managers are trying to be proactive,” Hellstrom said.

Because it’s hunting season and a lot of people are hiking in the area, officials want to make sure people know that there is a potential for the fire to push that direction.

“We put a forest closure in place to keep them out, keep them safe,” she said of the evacuation areas.

Personnel fighting the fire has been upped to 564 and a total of $10M has been spent fighting it to date.

Additional information can be found at Utah Fire Info. or at the Genasys Project.