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Team coverageIt's day two of the Corner Canyon fire in Draper. Residents who evacuated yesterday are back in their homes. The fire has died down, but there are some areas where it's still burning.
Low temperatures and higher humidity have helped firefighters, but what is still burning has gone in two directions. The fire moved east over the ridge to the backside of the mountain. It's also moved slightly north of Corner Canyon to Bear Canyon.
This is a lush area with timber and steep terrain that's tough for firefighters to get to. Scott Bushman, with the U.S. Forest Service, says, "That's where we're having our biggest problems. A lot of cliffs in there, real steep, real limited access to people on the ground, so we're relying on helicopter buckets to try to keep that in place here."
Helicopters are dumping 2,000 gallons of water at a time. That aggressive attack is part of the reason we're not seeing as much smoke today.
However, this is still an active fire. Kim Osborn, also with the U.S. Forest Service, says, "It's moved east, moving up the hill. There's definitely some active fire, it's not active like yesterday, but we have the hot spots. Some of the spots are on the interior with the black around it, so they're not really going anywhere, but we have some active areas."
Last night, at about 8 p.m., all of those homeowners who were evacuated were allowed back on to their properties. One homeowner we spoke to today was shocked the fire had spread so quickly. Sheryl Stark, a Draper resident, said, "Two weeks ago I thought, um, we have had a really good season. It's probably been good we had so much rain because we've had a really good season of no wildfires. And then, bam, there it goes right in your own backyard."
About 150 firefighters are still working the Corner Canyon Fire. The only area that's been contained is at the base of the mountain near where homes were threatened yesterday. There are nearly a dozen agencies from around the region fighting this fire.
Even though homes are not threatened today, firefighters say they will be here all week working to contain this.
The fire has scorched about 800 acres and is about 20 percent contained. We are told, so far, the cost of putting out the fire is $35,000 and climbing.
The fire was human caused and is under investigation. Anyone that may have seen anything around noon on the south end of the fire, or taken photos as the fire started is asked to call the Unified Fire Authority at (801)743-7100.
E-mail: gkennedy@ksl.com
E-mail: tcallan@ksl.com
E-mail: aadams@ksl.com
E-mail: spark@ksl.com
