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MILLARD COUNTY — Firefighters in Millard County were busy fighting wildfire Friday night that burned about a thousand acres. It started with a lightning strike, and then grew quickly.
What they're calling the Cedar Fire, burned out of control through most of the Friday, threatening one home and a few structures.
Firefighters from several agencies spent the whole afternoon here, and it wasn't until evening that things started to finally go their way.
The view from Chopper 5 showed how quickly the Cedar Fire covered this hillside in Millard County. Plenty of dry fuels and winds pushed it to keep growing.
Millard County Fire Warden Howard Allred said fighting the blaze was tough.
"It flared up, took off," Allred said. "(It's) been burning out of control all afternoon."
He said strong winds pushed the flames from one hillside to the other. "We (were) concerned about the communication towers up on top (of the hill)," he said. "The fire burned through those, but everything is intact up there."
For several hours, fire crews took an aggressive approach. "We had seat planes and we had a couple of air tankers," Allred said.
On the ground, firefighters were busy back-burning and building a fire line.
"The breaks (came) with our grader lines and our dozer lines," Allred said. "The fire was able to bump into those, and we pretty well suppressed it from there."
Luckily, the blaze pushed into those lines at around 7 p.m. The number of crews on hand was scaled back, but firefighters will continue to monitor the fire through the night.
