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(KSL News/AP) -- Temperatures and afternoon thunderstorms have fire crews on standby. Five fires are still burning today in Utah. At least nine were sparked yesterday.
KSL meteorologist Dina Freedman says today's weather will only add to the increasing fire danger.
Dina Freedman: "It looks like there will be some thunderstorms this afternoon, especially over higher terrain south and south central Utah. So any sort of lightening strikes could ignite wild fires."
The Stone Face fire is burning in steep terrain about 20 miles southeast of Delta in central Utah. The ignition source of the fire is still under investigation, said Karen Feary, a Forest Service spokeswoman at the interagency center.
At least four other fires were sparked Tuesday night by lightning, there was no lightning in the area of the Stone Face fire when it started Tuesday afternoon, Feary said.
The fire is burning in cheat grass and saltbush, and its growth overnight was fueled in part by high winds. Two engines, the Millard County fire warden and about four U.S. Bureau of Land Management firefighters are assigned to the fire, Feary said. No structures are threatened, and fire crews are managing the fire by trying to clear containment lines around it, she said.
A 700-acre blaze east of Marysvale in the Fishlake National Forest sparked by lightning Tuesday was being allowed to burn Wednesday to help reduce the amount of down trees and vegetative debris and to improve elk habitat in area. Containment boundaries have been established for the fire, Feary said. Three other smaller fires in the area, also lightning-caused, had been contained, she said.
State fire officials say this recent heat wave has made early June look more like July. So far most of the fires have been in remote areas in southern and central Utah. But, fire officials say this recent rash of fires is likely just a sign of what they will be dealing with all summer long.
Forecasts were for more afternoon thunderstorms Wednesday and recent hot, dry weather has pushed the fire danger to high. The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for Wednesday calling for dry lightning and thunderstorm winds, Feary said.
"It's not a red-flag warning, but it is a watch that we need to be careful about," she said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
