By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
The Levan fire, believed to be human-caused, is contained but will still be watched.
"They (fire incident management team) are calling the fire contained," said Brett Ostler, Juab County Fire Marshall. "They are also saying that the actual cause of the fire is still under investigation."
While a fire that is contained can be expected to stay within the established boundaries of constructed firelines under prevailing conditions, it is not considered completely doused, and, in this case, the burn scar is capable of playing havoc with the people who live below it in the form of flooding.
Rain Tuesday night, July 29, just a few days after the fire started, was responsible for a mudslide that caused damage to yards and farmland, ran across 12 miles of highway, closing it to through traffic, and created a river that began running toward Dale and Phyllis Kenison's home.
"At first, I didn't think it was going to reach us, but 15 minutes after I got home, it was here," said Phyllis Kenison.
When the home seemed in jeopardy, people suddenly started showing up to help and built a flood prevention barricade with huge bales of straw to keep the water from the home.
"People were fighting it and keeping it away from our home," she said. "People were putting up the straw bales. It was an amazing thing to see happen."
"We had neighbors we didn't recognize from the other part of town and everyone just stayed right here until they knew the house was safe and we didn't get any flooding inside," Dale Kenison said.
Another rancher, David Shepherd, did get flooding in his basement and said that the floods also washed out a campground near his home.
The ranchers went from being evacuated from their homes on the 24th to having those homes threatened by floods in just four days.
"The burn scar is troubling. It's a constant worry now, there's nothing up there now to hold any rain back," he said.
Dorothy Harvey, incident contact, Incident Commander, Mark Rosenthal, Great Basin Incident Command Team 3, and Randy Anderson, Operations Line Chief, said that the team would now be pulling out and would leave the fire to local firefighters and agencies.
Several crews were unable to come down off the mountain and had to spend the night there but officials knew the crews were OK because they could observe the camp fires glowing via infrared.
Rosenthal said that after all the fire fighters went through there were no injuries.
The wildfire that began on July 24 and burned 4,343 acres near Levan created a large burn scar and the potential for flooding was the very thing that Robert Shepherd, Golden Mangelson and Andrew Robinson, at a community meeting held at the Juab High School Little Theater a week ago Monday, July 28, asked about.
The men, along with others at the meeting, expressed fear that the burn would bring major flooding in its wake.
Dave Shepherd made an appointment with commissioners on Monday to speak with them in executive session about the flooding problem property owners on the south of Levan suffered this past week.
The flood waters covered everything in their path with mud and debris. On Wednesday, Enoch Barnhill was working to scrape mud from a neighbor's yard that he usually mows.
The heavy thunderstorm sent a river of mud, rocks and debris across state Route 28, closing the road for hours with the muddy runoff damaging the crops in farmers' fields.
The burn scar left behind could not hold back the heavy runoff from the thunderstorm, which dumped more than an inch of rain.
"It's a pretty bad deal," resident Brandon Scott said. "It's ruined a lot of fields. It's ruined a lot of hay fields."
And residents are worried it's going to happen again. On Wednesday, they created ditches so if it rains again, at least the water will have somewhere to go.
The Kenisons said they are indebted to those who turned up to help.
"We would have really had some damage if it hadn't been for them," Dale Kenison said.
"Heavy rains over the fire put a damper on firefighting efforts," said Rosenthal. "It went from fire suppression to flood control. Fire fighters faced mud slides, rock slides and slick terrain."
He said that the firefighters were soaked from the inside out, several vehicles were stuck in flood debris, being on the wrong side of a raging creek, and dealt with cool temperatures that were made cooler by being wet.
"They were working in conditions where they go from being very hot and sweaty, to damp and cold and chilly in the same couple-hour period," David Ulibarri, a public information officer with Unified Fire Authority said.
"Fire fighters did what fire fighters do, they persevered," said Rosenthal. "They were able to dig their vehicles out and find alternate routes to get back to the Incident Command Post (ICP)."
He said that firefighters even made time to help the public.
The problem isn't something that's going to go away.
"I drove out there this morning," said Byron Woodland, commissioner. "It looked like it was drying out but the flooding had made a mess."
Ulibarri said the town's troubles are not the norm.
"It is not often that you go from fire fighting to flood control in the same day, it doesn't usually happen that way," he said.
Rosenthal said that the rain not only made the fire fighters miserable it drowned the fire.
He said that, from a small spot near the highway, the fire burning in grass to begin with quickly spread from where it started across the highway from the Bateman Dairy and, within 18 hours, had burned 2,425 acres.
"There was pretty impressive fire growth in that amount of time," said Anderson. "It moved about seven miles that first night."
"The Great Basin Incident Command Team will be turning the fire back to the Local Unit on Friday, August 1 and will be headed home," said Rosenthal. "The fire area will be in patrol status (still being watched for any heat)."
There have been no structures destroyed, two minor injuries and one minor vehicle accident. The estimated cost to date is $3,498,809.00 (down from what was reported earlier).
"The Great Basin Incident Command Team 3 would like to thank the communities around the fire for their hospitality," he said.
