WEBER COUNTY, Utah - The Uintah Fire has burned 619 acres and 119 homes remain under mandatory evacuations in Weber County Thursday.
The Uintah Fire, which started near the mouth of Weber Canyon Tuesday, spread throughout the hillside and down into neighborhoods and along Highway 84.
It has burned three homes, three structures and threatens dozens of others.
“I was there a little earlier and I saw one of the houses down below just explode into flames,” Andy McCrady said, whose daughter lives a block from ByBee Drive, the street hit hardest by the fire.
Wednesday night, the remaining evacuees gathered at the Dee Event Center off the Weber State campus to see if they could go home.
“I was hoping!” Valorie Haugen said. “It would be nice to go back home but there is a much bigger picture than us missing a night or two.”
Valorie and her husband Randy have been told they may be able to go home Thursday night.
Others got the news they wanted to hear.
“Relief,” McCrady said, who got word they could go back to his daughter’s home.
Earlier in the day, Forest Service officials toured ByBee Drive, the street with the most remaining evacuations.
“It’s amazing sometimes how a fire didn’t burn one house and gets another and why the wind shifts at just the right time; I can’t explain that,” Kim Osborn said, who led the tour.
“There’s definitely some work that needs to be done in here. When you have the oak brush right up against the houses, or if you got a shake-shingle roof, these oak brush that are right up against the house are going to catch on fire," Osborn said.
Uintah Fire evacuations map - Sept. 7, 2017
