BOUNTIFUL — As the Cooley family stood on their front lawn at 3 a.m., surrounded by darkness and confusion and frightened neighbors, the conversation turned to California.
Sirens.
Flames.
Orders to be ready to flee the area quickly.
Some 400 homes were evacuated early Friday morning when the fast-moving Gun Range Fire spread from the hillside down into the town of Bountiful. Three houses were destroyed and at least five damaged.
“It made you realize how fast that could happen,” Marilyn Cooley said.
Amazingly, no residents were injured.
The suddenness of the situation had brought to mind the devastating blazes in California, including last November’s Paradise fire that killed 86 and destroyed nearly 19,000 buildings.
But by Friday afternoon, crews were getting the upper hand above Bountiful — and fewer than 10 homes had been significantly damaged. A few firefighters had been treated for heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation, but their injuries were minor.
“Where we could have lost 40 or 50 homes, we may have had damage to four to eight (homes),” Gov. Gary Herbert said. “That’s still four to eight too many, but it’s better than 40 or 50. ... It’s a tribute to the people here working together, the collaboration, saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a problem, let’s work together and solve it.’”
Fire officials believe there are a few reasons why the Gun Range Fire did not turn deadly like California’s Camp Fire.
For one, the landscape that fueled the fires was different, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Kim Osborn. The hillside that burned above Bountiful was filled with mostly tall grass and oak brush. One of the problems with the California wildfires in 2018 was a record number of dead trees.
Winds also played a factor. In California, strong wind gusts over several days of hot weather blew embers a mile or more, creating multiple fires.
But the strong winds — up to 30 mph — that blew down through Utah’s canyons as a cold front moved through, fanning the fire, had died down by 7 a.m., Osborn said.
That wind posed an even bigger challenge when combined with the wind created by the fire itself, said South Davis Metro Fire Chief Jeff Bassett.
“Those two things were working against us,” Bassett said.
Through the night, fire crews from multiple jurisdictions, including Salt Lake and Weber counties, worked together to knock down what Bassett described as 80-foot flames. It was a smooth execution of the “constant” collaborative training the fire departments undergo, the fire chief said. Their main goal was to protect as many homes as they could.
“Our crews, along with all of the fire crews that came in to assist us, that’s what made the difference in this fire today,” Bassett said. “For us to be able to say no citizens were injured or killed is just a great example of the work that our firefighters did.”
U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Dana Harris confirmed Friday afternoon that the Gun Range Fire was caused by an abandoned campfire near the Bountiful “B.” Officials are looking for two individuals in a small SUV, she said.
The fire was first reported just before 1 a.m., when a Bountiful police officer spotted the flames above the shooting range at 1350 N. Skyline Drive, according to South Davis Metro Deputy Fire Chief Dave Powers. Friday evening the fire was measuring in at 365 acres and was 10% contained.
Early Friday morning was about defense, Osborn said. After the sun came up and the wind died down, firefighting efforts went on the offensive.
Meanwhile, emergency officials and residents pounded on doors to wake sleeping neighbors.
Marilyn Cooley wasn’t surprised when she and her husband were roused by police sirens blaring past their house. Sirens weren’t uncommon in the Cooleys’ neighborhood, not far from the massive hillside “B” overlooking the town.
“We just thought, ‘Oh, there’s a ruckus up at the B,’” Cooley recalled.
Instead, her husband looked out the window to find flames engulfing the hill.
“We’re on fire,” he told his wife.
Officials told the Cooleys and their neighbors on Skyline Drive to prepare for evacuation, Marilyn Cooley said, but that evacuation never actually went into place.
Cooley’s sister’s home, however, was in the evacuation zone. The mandatory evacuation area stretched from approximately 400 North to 1600 North and everything east of 900 East, with a “soft” evacuation order — meaning only residents who live in that area were allowed in — between Pages Lane and 400 North, and 400 East to 900 East.
Two of the homes destroyed were in a cul-de-sac near 1000 North and 1000 East in Bountiful, according to fire officials. The third was on Edgehill Drive.
By 7:30 a.m. Friday, the threat to homes and other buildings had “diminished considerably,” Bassett said. School resumed as usual in the Davis School District, though road closures prevented school buses from picking up students in the evacuated areas.
The district told parents in a notice that it also planned to monitor air quality conditions throughout the day. The blaze had “significant impacts on air quality in Bountiful and Centerville,” according to a tweet from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Evacuation centers were set up in Centerville, but had closed by 7:30 a.m. Evacuation centers were also set up in Bountiful; the shelter at Main and Center streets remained open through the morning, and those still under evacuation orders late Friday were told they wouldn’t be able to get back into their homes until at least Saturday.
As the day went on, donations of food and water and offers of places to sleep began to pour in from the rest of the community. Donations to help families impacted by the fire were collected at the Kaysville Police Department.
“Our community response has been fantastic,” said Bountiful City Councilwoman Kate Bradshaw. “We have had an overwhelming response of offers to help.”
After visiting the evacuation shelter, Herbert said he’d heard the same sentiment from many of the people displaced by the fire: they had no intention of leaving Bountiful.
“They’re saying, ‘We’re rebuilding, we’re not going to let the fire drive us out of this community,’” Herbert said. “That’s reflective of the community as a whole, the culture and the quality of the people we have here.”
Contributing: Kim Bojorquez