ST. GEORGE, Utah — Video from Southern California shows the desolation left behind after this week's wildfires. And while it is hundreds of miles from Utah, it used to be home for me.
The evacuation zone, which has inched closer and closer to my brothers' homes in Granada Hills and Sylmar, is now only a couple of blocks away.
I used to work for a newspaper in Pacific Palisades where recent photos show flames engulfing a building. One shows where my desk was located, one where I would look across the street at the families picking up their kids at a school that’s now gone.
The coffee shop where I met Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, is gutted.
The fires have engulfed a big area, but imagine if it happened in Utah.
In Salt Lake City, it would be like the area from 400 South to Rose Park and from the state capitol to Interstate 215, leaving Capitol Hill, Temple Square, and all of downtown destroyed by fire.
Max Roth explains below how Utahns can learn their exact wildfire risk:
"I’ve seen some pictures, it is unfathomable how much destruction is happening and it's so worrisome," said St. George resident Sherrie Slater.
If an equivalent fire occurred in the St. George area, everything from Pioneer Park down to the Dixie Convention Center would be gone.
Slater was taking her daughter and granddaughter to St. George’s Firehouse Park and he flames from far away have put her on notice in Utah.
"It makes me want to prepare a lot," she admitted. "Like, I was talking to my husband, I want to go to Walmart and get some things in my car."
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Lew and Gayle Davis, who were visiting Pioneer Park from Washington state, know something about worrying about an approaching fire.
"You know, we're from the northwest, and we've kind of gone through a similar situation," Gayle explained. "In a place called Steheken. Last summer, we were in a remote area. Only accessible by boat or airplane and the fire was miles away but they made quick work of it."
