LAKE POINT, Tooele County — The air tanker banks as it soars over dense gray smoke that fills a canyon on Farnsworth Peak. Suddenly, shocking-pink retardant gushes from the plane. Streamers drift onto the flames.
From the scorched flats at the base of the mountain, you can hear the propeller engines hum and drone. It sounds like a World War II movie.
In a way, this is war: just one battle against the quick-to-spark wildfires that have flashed across thousands of acres throughout Utah during the past week.
And like a war, the fight is waged with meticulous attention to the details of supply and organization, morale and planning.
Bert Hart of Richfield, information officer for the team fighting the blaze in the Oquirrh Mountains, serves as a guide around base camp and the region close to the "Borrow Pit Fire," as it's being called. The blaze itself is higher on the mountain, amid steep, rocky terrain.
By this point, the fire has blackened at least 3,000 acres. It began Wednesday afternoon. Now its fury is concentrated in a draw called Coyote Canyon, about halfway up Farnsworth Peak — a mountain whose prominent ridge, between the Salt Lake and Tooele valleys, bristles with many millions of dollars' worth of TV and other communications towers and equipment.
After tankers flying out of Hill Air Force Base make run after run at Coyote Canyon, a fleet of helicopters take their turns. The three choppers dangle buckets on cables, which they fill with water from orange portable reservoirs — rubberized tanks shaped like squat fishbowls.
Beside the reservoirs are two tanker trucks that keep them supplied with water. When one runs low, it drives into a nearby town to fill up at a hydrant while the other pumps water into the reservoirs.
Moving in, a helicopter hovers over the reservoir and lowers its bucket. The bucket floats for a moment and then sinks.
The helicopter seems to be straining when it rises with a full bucket, tilting above a blackened mountainside. Water leaks from the bucket. Another chopper arrives as the first departs and soon follows it up the peak.
For a moment one helicopter seems to crawl along gray-then-green cliffs and mountainside. Then it is directly above the smoke in the draw. After curving around the head of the canyon and dropping a quick splash of water, it heads back to the portable reservoir.
Each bucket carries 200 or 300 gallons of water. "Lift capacity is based on the temperature and elevation and their horsepower rating," Hart says.
When helicopters ferry crews to a fire, "we calculate the weight of all the crew members and their tools to where we don't overload the helicopters." The same calculations are done when they carry water.
"They can to a certain degree sling water. . . . You really get to appreciate those pilots."
High on the mountain, "hot-shot crews" battle the fire with hand tools, as well as the help of the tankers and helicopters. The burning slope is far too rugged for fire engines.
On a flat at the mountain's base, Shane Freeman, of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, waits in a fire engine beside a stretch of blackened earth. Freeman, from Salt Lake Valley, says the fire engine was part of a strike team of five engines.
"They're monitoring right now. We've already picked up one new fire this morning. So they're ready to respond to anything that takes off," he says.
Freeman and the other engine crews are ready to race to the scene of any new outbreak on the flats.
"We've got the five fire engines positioned in different locations in case something does take off," he says.
Freeman has been watching the helicopters and tankers. "They're making progress with air support," he notes, satisfaction in his voice.
Will the team get the fire under control that day?
"We hope so," Freeman says. "It all depends on these winds."
The winds are not bad at the moment. Using a small plastic device — a hand-held weather station — he measures wind speed, temperature and relative humidity.
"It's very dry," he says.
Relative humidity is only 5 percent; that means fire danger is high. The temperature stands near 90 degrees. Fortunately, the breeze is only blowing at 5 mph.
Freeman will hand in his record of weather conditions that afternoon at base camp. There the planning section will use the readings when devising the next day's game plan.
Base camp is at the Deseret Peak Complex, a recreation area near Grantsville, Tooele County. Running the effort is the interagency team of which Hart is a member: Shell's Type 2 Eastern Great Basin, Incident Management Team.
The team is named for its leader, or "incident commander," a U.S. Forest Service official named Jim Shell. Members come from state and federal agencies throughout the West.
Inside a rodeo building at the complex, the planning group has its headquarters under bleachers. Color maps are taped to the wall, showing transportation corridors, divisions of the fire, topographic lines and areas where other aircraft are restricted.
Five planners work at folding tables and chairs. They're equipped with telephones and a laptop computer. Planning worksheets, too, are stuck to the wall, pinpointing such potential concerns as steep topography.
"This gives the firefighters a heads-up of what to look for when we brief them in the morning, . . . so they know what to expect when they get out there," Hart says, indicating a safety analysis. "They do not like surprises."
Every afternoon at 4 p.m., an expert from the team's operations command announces goals for the next day. Then the planning team will put together a document called an incident action plan.
The plan details the next day's efforts and concerns. For example, the document for this day has maps, lists of personnel, cell phone numbers and items to watch out for.
A handwritten safety message in the plan warns:
"We face a lot of hazards and potential hazards on this complex. . . . Post lookouts, have escape routes and safety zones. We are experiencing extreme fire behavior, so be aware of what is going on around you."
It cites changing and erratic winds and adds, "Watch your footing on the steep terrain and watch for rolling rocks. Keep an eye out for snakes. Take plenty of water and drink a lot."
Firefighters Tim Trujillo and Jeff Dee, both from Enterprise, Ore., pause at a table outside in a makeshift supply depot. They're apparently there to pick up clean clothing — bright yellow shirts and greenish pants — made of fire-resistant material.
Folded shirts and other gear rise in piles on tables, while boxes of supplies are stacked around the building: fire gloves, chain saws, rotary pumps, fire axes with cardboard around the blades, "meals ready to eat," engine oil, bottled water.
The boxed meals aren't needed at camp because caterers from Kanab have been providing hot meals. But they could be useful at spike camps near the fire.
Trujillo and Dee are rappellers. "They'll fly a helicopter in there and drop ropes, then we'll rappel down the ropes and get to the fire," Trujillo says.
After some rest, on this particular day they are supporting helicopter activities. But the day before they were on the fire's perimeter, "holding the line," Dee says.
"Basically you just stand there on the edge of the line, you know, where the black meets the green," he says. Where crews have cut a fire line to prevent the spread of the blaze, they keep an eye to make sure sparks don't jump the line.
What if a fire spreads to the other side?
"We'll do the initial attack on the spot fire, and if we can't get it by ourselves we'll call for support," Dee says. "We have hand tools, chain saws and just personnel. And then if we need helicopters to come in, we'll have the helicopters come in and support us."
On Thursday the Borrow Pit Fire "burned real hot," he says.
"The hot-shot crews worked all night . . . and they did a real good job. Yeah. Excellent job."
Organized in crews of 20, "hot shots" are the top firefighters. They spend days camped in spike camps near the fire, so they can get to the blaze quickly.
Amber Mathews is loading water bags onto the back of a pickup truck, about to drive them to a staging area on Farnsworth Peak. Firefighters carry such bags on their backs and squirt water at the flames. She has little time to talk.
She is not a firefighter, Mathews emphasizes. She is a driver working for the Bureau of Land Management. In her job she will "run errands, provide the water, do whatever's needed."
This is her first fire.
"It has been a lot of fun for me," Mathews says, "but it's been scary as well.
"It's been pretty intense."
E-mail: bau@desnews.com