Traveling east on I-18 to Park City, we personally witnessed the incredible speed and growth of the Parley’s Canyon Fire on August 14th, at around 2:20 PM.
The plume of smoke was easily 1,500 feet high, but the air was still clear and there was no smell. These hints told us this fire had just started. We learned that the fire started at around 1 PM, and it was caused by an overheated catalytic converter on a vehicle.
At the time we were traveling, dozens of firefighters from both the Summit County Fire Department as well as BLM wilderness firefighters were on the scene. They had done an excellent job at keeping the fire from the freeway, which would be catastrophic if it spread across I-80.
Returning home (West on I-180) We witnessed that the size of the crews and the number of vehicles on scene had doubled, and the number of vehicles stuck in traffic heading eastbound on I-80 had increased. The size of the fire didn’t appear to have grown substantially.
Currently, as of Sunday at 12:00 pm, the fire is 0% contained and fire crews are attempting to create a fireline, to prevent the spread of the fire to Summit Park. The natural wind pattern is for the wind to blow east during the day, which would cause the fire to jeopardize burning Summit Park. For this reason, there is an evacuation order in place for all Summit Park Residents as well as all residents of Lambs Canyon.
Utah Stories wrote about BLM firefighters three years ago as they were attempting to control a blaze at that time that had burned hundreds of thousands of acres. The Parley’s Canyon fire of 2021 is currently 2,000 acres.
