Smoke plumes from the Yellow Lake Fire Thursday morning as seen from the drive between Park City and Kamas. Photo: Hayley Holland

Overnight and into Thursday morning, the new fire management team issued mandatory evacuation orders in Wasatch and Duchesne County

SUMMIT COUNTY, Utah — Fire personnel and county officials have ordered new evacuations in Wasatch County, and Summit County has issued a fire advisory as the Yellow Lake Fire continues to burn in the Uinta-Wasatch Cache National Forest. According to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the fire is currently 20,878 acres.

The Summit County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday morning that due to erratic fire behavior, the closure of the Mirror Lake Highway (Hwy 150) from Slate Creek to the Highline Trailhead is likely and mandatory evacuations are in place south of the highway between the same points.

Currently, the Mirror Lake Highway is open. Check UDOT for up-to-date information about highway closures.

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The evacuation map on the fire information app Watch Duty shows the fire footprint in dark red, light red indicates areas under active evacuation orders, and yellow areas should prepare to evacuate.

Hunters and recreationists planning to camp or visit the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest on the north side of Mirror Lake Highway (Hwy 150) between Slate Creek (Yellow Pine Trailhead) and the Highline Trail should use extreme caution. Erratic fire behavior from the Yellow Lake Fire is likely to trigger a closure and evacuation of this area, the advisory read.

Wasatch County evacuation areas: A new closure has been ordered along the south side of Hwy 150 (see the map below). Evacuations are also in order on the east (near the fire’s origin) and southern flank of the fire.

Duchesne County evacuation areas: A large area west of the current fire footprint that includes East Grandaddy Mountain has been put in a ready state for evacuations, while the community of Hanna remains in a “ready” state.

Fire update: On October 8, a new Complex Incident Management Team (CIMT) took over the management of the Yellow Lake Fire. Essentially, this means that a bigger team with access to bigger resources that can be ordered more quickly is now in charge.

Fire officials from the previous team shared that for about a week, when the fire raged west and south, increasing three-fold in acreage, a Type 1 fire was managed by a relatively small Type 3 team. Despite having over 400 personnel, fire conditions and Mother Nature did not cooperate, leading to a large amount of fire activity. Winds on many days prevented available aircraft from being able to drop water and fire retardant where needed, and the fire was burning so hot that ground crews had to be pulled off the fire out of safety concerns. Once conditions improved, crews were let back on the fire.

As dry conditions persist, firefighters face the challenging task of containment. An area along Hwy 35, where the fire was active earlier this week is being mopped up, fire speak for the process of putting out any remaining embers or flames. Updated information on containment has not been shared since October 8, when it stood at 21%.