Fires strike Y Mountain, Provo and Diamond Fork canyons
Man and nature conspired to make Friday a busy one for firefighters after three blazes started in Utah County as Pioneer Day came to an end.
Fires at Y Mountain, Bridal Veil Falls and Diamond Fork Canyon kept dozens of firefighters from numerous agencies occupied on Friday. The first of the three began in the Monks Hollow area of Diamond Fork Canyon around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, burning about three acres.
The Monks Hollow fire was sparked by lightning, according to U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Loyal Clark, but the other blazes were human-caused. Two people were arrested on charges of accidentally setting Y Mountain aflame. Provo Fire Department Battalion Chief Tom Augustus said 23-year-old William James Hebda and 20-year-old Camille Gardner, both of Orem, started the fire around 1 a.m. Friday by setting off fireworks on Y Mountain. Both were booked into the Utah County Jail on charges of reckless burning.
The fire in Provo Canyon, which destroyed the abandoned Bridal Veil Falls Restaurant, was also human-caused, Clark said, though investigators are still trying to determine what ignited it. Clark said they are not sure whether the fire was started accidentally, like the Y Mountain fire, or was intentional arson. The fire was reported shortly after 11 p.m. Thursday.
Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Nicole Hunter said the Utah County Sheriff’s Office interviewed three suspects who were in the area of the Bridal Veil Falls fire. A representative of the Sheriff’s Office didn’t return calls for comment.
About 50 firefighters from Provo city, Utah County and Salt Lake County battled the conflagration on Y Mountain on Friday, along with two helicopters from the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The fire burned about 10 acres below the giant Y, Clark said. The mountain’s trail system and rocky cliffs created a natural firebreak, and Clark said firefighters expect to have it fully contained by 8 a.m. today.
The flames at the old restaurant at the top of Bridal Veil Falls were extinguished around 10:30 a.m. Those flames, however, burned several nearby trees before that happened, and Clark said firefighters planned to bring a helicopter from Y Mountain to the canyon to drop water on the smoldering fire on Friday night. She said there were no plans to bring fire crews to the top of the falls.
“It’s too dangerous and there is not anything that’s threatened,” Clark said.
The Y Mountain fire cost tens of thousands of dollars to fight, and Clark said Hebda and Gardner may have to pay the bill themselves because of their fireworks antics.
“That is a possibility. We’ll work with the district attorney’s office to determine what type of charges may be filed,” Clark said. “That hasn’t been determined yet.”
Fire crews started fighting the blaze around 6:30 a.m., and by 10:30 the bill for the firefighting effort had reached $30,000. It costs $1,000 to keep the Forest Service helicopter in the air for an hour, and the BLM helicopter costs $1,600 per hour.
It is illegal to use fireworks on Forest Service land, and Clark said that doing so is especially irresponsible in the hot, dry conditions the area is experiencing.
“It’s not just the cost of the fire that is a problem, but the location of the fire could have presented a very disastrous wildfire that could have put a lot of homes at risk,” Clark said.
The reports of the fires at Y Mountain and Bridal Veil Falls came in late Thursday night and early Friday morning, but firefighters did not respond to either area until around 6 a.m. Clark said the Bridal Veil Falls fire was clearly contained in the abandoned restaurant, and firefighters were never sent on foot to the fire because of the terrain. Y Mountain’s hazardous, steep terrain made it too dangerous to send firefighters there in the darkness, Clark said, and they were confident that the mountain’s trail system and rocky cliffs would prevent the flames from spreading.
“The fire was completely within those natural firebreaks,” Clark said.
• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or jduda@heraldextra.com.
