Looking out with the naked eye toward “Hogsback” or “the Henefer Divide” Monday afternoon from Charity Richins’ property off West Henefer Road, a bit of orange light winked in and out from the base of a growing smoke column.
Zooming in on an iPhone, that bit of light grew into shape: orange and red flames twisted and writhed against a hillside’s dark green vegetation.
The human-caused Rocky Canyon Fire was first reported Friday in Morgan County and grew from a few hundred acres to 15,000 acres over the weekend due to high heat, erratic winds and dry fuel conditions.
Henefer Mayor Kay Richins said evacuations, which as of Monday midday included the homes west of 300 West in Henefer and along West Henefer Road, may seem early to some, but it’s best to err on the side of caution. The evacuation notification was also mistakenly sent across all of Summit County and other parts of Northern Utah.
“I was with the fire chief this morning, and he was telling me that this is a very dynamic fire, in the sense that they (usually) have an idea which way the winds will blow and the patterns,” the mayor said. “But this wind has just been totally opposite, or it’s done crazy things. And it’s been one of the fastest moving fires that they have seen.”
Those winds and dry fuels are what concern Charity, a Henefer native, the most.
Just behind her family’s 230-acre property on the west side of Henefer is what she calls “the dry farms,” visible as the stretch of yellow at the base of a more vegetated mountain.
“It’s like a matchbox behind that, the dry farms, the dry oak in the mountains. That’s why it’s spreading so fast,” she said.
Charity grew up on the land, which has been in her family for generations, but only moved back in October after finishing construction on a brand-new house for her and her 14-year-old son, Noah.
It’s not just her and Noah, and their mini German schnauzer, Thanos, on the property — which is more like a compound with a few homes and barns — but also her father, siblings, nieces and nephews. So when it came to selecting valuables, it wasn’t just important documents and photos that they needed to pack.
“We have a lot of farm equipment, boats, motorcycles. My niece has taxidermy there, so she had to remove all of her animals because, if those are burnt, you can’t replace those. It’s not like clothing,” she said.
Charity, a teacher in the North Summit School District who formerly served in the military, said she’d had anxiety about a fire like this, and evacuations, all summer. So in a way, she’s been ready.
“We’re always prepared for shootings, fires in the school. So I mean, that’s just my mentality. I packed before we even got the ‘Ready’ status,” she said. “You always prepare for the worst.”
Still, Charity said when she received the “Go” evacuation notice over text, and then in-person from the sheriff, on Sunday afternoon, it was like a movie.
“There was a huge crew, everyone helping to remove everything, and then we had our neighbors come with the skid steers, and we were trying to push out a line before the houses and clear everything,” she said.
That community support also showed up for Denise Stuart, a 37-year-long resident of Henefer who was also evacuated. When she saw the evacuation alert come through on her phone, Stuart said she didn’t think it was that serious.
“I wasn’t leaving, because I didn’t know it was that bad. I didn’t even pay attention to it,” she said. “You know, people exaggerate so damn much you think, ‘Oh God, here we go again.’”
She gathered her family’s valuables after her daughter, who’d heard about the notice, called her. Charity went outside, saw the smoke column and started packing.
Pills, clothes, important documents, pictures — Stuart said that, thankfully, she knew where all those were, especially since her husband has Alzheimer’s and wasn’t able to help much. Her son, who has Down syndrome, also lives with her and mostly packed himself.
“All he cared about was his PlayStation 5. He wanted to take his PlayStation 5 and his TV,” she said with a laugh. She had to remind him to get his CPAP machine and oxygen tank. “Everything else he did not care about at all.”
Stuart said this was the first time living in Henefer that she’d had to evacuate.
“It’s chaotic, is what it is. It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, now what do I do?’” Stuart said. “Then we had some neighbors come and help us. The neighbors around here, everybody was calling to see if they could help.”
She said that support is a character of the town, something she saw recently with the death of her young grandchild. Her family stayed the night with her daughter in Pleasant View but returned home Monday afternoon despite the ongoing evacuations. She kept those suitcases packed, though, and plans to leave again if it gets worse.
The mayor and Charity said this is the first large-scale fire to impact residents of Henefer.
Charity, whose dad was a volunteer firefighter with the North Summit Fire Department, said she remembers small lightning fires growing up, but nothing of this magnitude.
“It’s a unique experience. We’ve never been through anything like that before. The sound of evacuations, fires are coming, etc., it’s kind of scary for folks,” the mayor said. “It’s caused a lot of people to look at their property and come to the realization that, especially those around the outlying areas, they may be in harm’s way. … I think it’s maybe even a wake-up call for a few people.”
The mayor said that, while the official community meeting planned for Sunday night was canceled, there was an impromptu meeting where locals could ask questions and get more information from fire officials, which helped ease anxiety in some residents and gave people an idea of how they can prepare, like removing vegetation from the area around homes.
Another community meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at the North Summit High School auditorium in Coalville. The meeting will be livestreamed via Zoom, summitcountyut.zoom.us/j/95292509116, and in-person attendees can speak to officials during breakout discussions after the meeting.
Charity, Noah and Thanos originally stayed with her mom, Christine Charlesworth, who lived in a part of Henefer that hadn’t evacuated yet. However, more and more of the town was under evacuation orders by Monday afternoon.
Charity’s family brought everything over to Charlesworth’s property, but kept the vehicles loaded in case they needed to move again. At first, they planned to go to a sister’s house over an hour away, Charity said, but Noah didn’t want to be too far away in case something happened. Charlesworth’s home looks out on the valley and the growing fire.
“We actually have a view. So if my house burns down, I can watch it in real time,” Charity said.
But they can also see some of the firefighting efforts.
She watched as three planes circled over the fire on Monday, dropping water and retardant to try and get ahead of the expected late-afternoon winds.
“I have to say I love watching these planes and these brave pilots just flying into this fire; it’s absolutely incredible. These are the people who save homes, save lives,” she said.
Mayor Richins said hundreds of firefighters, from as far as North Dakota and New Mexico, are working the Rocky Canyon Fire, which is currently managed by a Northern Utah Interagency Type 3 team. But for residents like Charity, it’s still incredibly scary to know the worst could happen.
“I’m a single mom, and we haven’t had our own home. We’ve lived in apartments for, I don’t know, a long time, and we’ve moved a lot. So for us, the big stress is, ‘OK, we have insurance, but if the structure burns down, where are we going to go?’” she said. “That’s, I think, the challenge for a lot of people is, if you did get displaced, where would you live? There are no housing options.”