Utah News Dispatch
Fire crews fan out across Utah, where ‘any little spark can really start a wildfire’
The Iron Fire burns near Eureka, Utah, in a photo shared by fire officials on Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Utah Fire Info)
Wildfires raging in Utah forced the evacuation of an entire town over the weekend, rerouted ambulances away from a Salt Lake City hospital and demanded backup resources from other states.
For months, officials warned that a winter of record warmth and snow drought helped dry out the state, priming Utah for an especially dangerous fire season. By Monday, this year’s wildfires had torched more than 45,000 acres.
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State leaders have also emphasized that most wildfires are preventable. Authorities suspect humans are responsible for starting at least four of five large fires burning in the state as of Monday, though they did not provide details on the pending investigations.
When a cocktail of high winds, hot weather and low humidity mixes together like it did last week, it helps fires that would have otherwise stayed much smaller to spread fast and far, said Karl Hunt, spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands.
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“That makes it where any little spark can really start a wildfire, and I think we saw that this weekend,” Hunt said.
The Iron Fire burning near the central Utah town of Eureka, population 600, has kept residents out of their homes since Saturday under mandatory evacuation orders. It burned roughly 22,000 acres, with zero containment, and was expected to grow Monday because of shifting winds.
By the end of the day Monday, more evacuations were ordered for the Eagle Point and Hi-Lo communities in the Tushar Mountains near Beaver after the Cottonwood Fire broke out there, consuming more than 750 acres.
Over the weekend, Eureka was “nearly lost,” Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said in a post on Instagram. She praised the “heroic efforts of many brave firefighters” who worked through the night to defend the tiny community in the Tintic Mountains.
More than 400 firefighters continued to battle flames in steep, dangerous terrain Monday, said Toby Weed, spokesperson for the fire’s incident management team. And another factor made the work even harder.
A drone was spotted in the area where firefighters were working and aircraft was dropping fire retardant, Weed said, creating a dangerous situation for pilots and for ground crews whose safety depends on aid from above.
“They are not allowed at any wildfire, ever,” Weed said of drones. Interfering with firefighting is a federal crime, and the penalties for violating wildfire airspace restrictions with drones can carry steep fines.
Over the weekend, a smaller blaze burning in the foothills east of Salt Lake City caused alarm at the University of Utah and its medical campus, diverting ambulances to other facilities as employees worked to calm patients worried about the smell of smoke.
The Bonneville Fire had burned about 500 acres as of Monday, but state fire officials reported crews were “making great progress” and described the threat to nearby neighborhoods as minimal. Containment stood at 5%, said Sierra Hellstrom, spokesperson for the coalition of firefighting agencies working to battle the blaze.
Firefighters were also battling the 6,000-acre Hastings Fire burning in remote Tooele County, about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City. It remained at 0% containment Monday.
