BEAVER, Utah — For two weeks, nearly 500 firefighters at a time have battled the 7,000 acre Thompson Ridge fire, but the blaze remains just 29 percent contained as weather just south of Beaver has made the fire challenging to control.
And though it has provided a bit of relief, heavy rains have also been a problem, as crews say a scramble to manage flooding from afternoon downpours has become routine. They need to make sure water doesn’t seep into the technology and supplies awaiting firefighters when they return to the site.
Brush and timber are fueling the fire and are protected by tree canopies, so every storm means the firefighter work is put on pause.
“We have crews spiked out on the line that don’t have to hike up and down every day but we’re not able to keep them on the line due to weather," said Incident Commander Dylan Rader. "We’ve been having to pull them off due to safety concerns, so that’s what’s been one of the challenges with this fire.
“We usually have about a 4 or 5 hour window where we can work, but because of the rain, we’ve had to pull crews off early a lot of times.”
The usual 16-hour shifts to put out the fire have often times been cut down by a third.
Two incident command posts with supplies and medical support for firefighters are situated about an hour away from the fire in Fishlake National Forest.
At the fire's peak a few days ago Rader sad there were 500 people working the fire, a number that has fallen to 400.
“You know our crews are used to challenges and one of the things is we look at them not as challenges but we have to overcome it. What we’re doing is definitely going to leave the fire in a better place than how we found it,” said Rader.
With a forest fire at this magnitude, one official said the final smoldering brush may not be put out until the fall.
Despite the large size of the fire, the good news is that there is currently no threat to the public.
