There’s a pretty big wildfire right now near Price Canyon. My mom came over and told me about it, and we could see the smoke rising above Wood Hill just north of Price, but we couldn’t see the base of the smoke plume, so it was really hard to tell where the fire was at. We drove up onto Wood Hill, and we could see that it was somewhere north of Helper, probably right in Price Canyon. I went back home and got the Subaru, then headed up the canyon to check it out. Just a few miles up the canyon, there was brush on fire right next to the road, but the majority of the burning was high up on the mountains. There were dozens and dozens of people parked on the side of the road so they could take a look at the fire. You really couldn’t see much from the side of the road, but I figured if I headed up to the top of the canyon, then went east on Emma Park Road, I’d have a nice view of everything. When I got up on top, I could see the smoke plume really well. The further east I drove, the more I realized that the fire was a lot closer to the top than it appeared from afar. I passed the fire command center just a few miles down the road, and further on at Matt’s Summit (the highest point between US-6 and US-191 on Emma Park Road), there were a few people (including my wife’s uncle Bob) parked there with a good view of everything. I could see an airplane dropping supplies by parachute to the firefighters on the ground. As I drove towards US-191, I crossed into the shadow of the smoke plume, and didn’t come out of it until about 8 or 9 miles later. When I got back to the power plant in Price Canyon, the Helper fire department was there spraying down the huge stores of coal that they burn for power. I’m sure if that caught on fire, it’d be one hell of a disaster, and the fire was probably only a mile or two from that area by then. I’m going to drive back up there tonight and try to catch some pictures of the fire in the dark, at least if it’s still burning by then. Until then, here are the pictures I took already today.
Update: There are more pictures, same place as the above link. Ty drove us all up there (including Mandi), and it was a pretty spectacular sight. It made me realize how scary it must be for the firefighters who were out there trying to fight it at night. They had Emma Park Road closed off this time, so I’m sure the fire must have reached the road up there. It’s too bad too, because I think we would have gotten some badass pictures from there.