Three firefighters were killed and two others injured Saturday while they tackled wildfires on the Colorado-Utah border, the U.S. Wildland Fire Service announced. The agency said the crew members had been part of an interagency response to the Knowles and Gore fires.
"The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stands united with the USDA Forest Service in grief and in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind," the service said in a statement on Facebook. "Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten."
In a press release, the Department of the Interior said the five firefighters were involved in a "burnover incident," which happens when firefighters are overtaken and have to shelter as best they can while a fire passes directly over them. The department said the two firefighters who survived were being treated for burn injuries.
Fires in Utah, Colorado and Arizona have been intensifying, thanks to days of low humidity, high temperatures and strong winds. The conditions have pushed fire behavior to extremes not commonly seen in the region, stretching resources and forcing the governors of both Utah and Colorado to declare emergencies.
Cottonwood fire not yet contained
The biggest blaze is the Cottonwood Fire, burning in rugged terrain in southern Utah's Beaver County, which has grown to more than 92,000 acres as of Sunday afternoon. It is currently the largest wildfire burning anywhere in the United States.
It has already severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort and destroyed summer cabins. Damage assessments were underway, though no final estimates of destroyed structures were yet available. On Saturday, hundreds of residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville were placed on notice to leave as conditions worsened.
Also burning is the Snyder Fire, covering more than 28,000 acres. It began as the Snyder Mesa Fire on Saturday in east Utah's Grand County, but later combined with the smaller Jones and Knowles fires in Colorado.
Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the Cottonwood Fire, told NPR that crews this weekend had been dealing with single-digit humidity and wind gusts of around 45 miles per hour, on top of fuel moisture readings between 2% and 8%.
Those conditions grounded helicopters and other firefighting aircraft on Friday afternoon and again briefly on Saturday. The terrain has compounded an already difficult task, Morgan said, with the steep cliffs and canyon walls making it hard to move heavy equipment and engines into position and thus slowing the response.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, in a social media post Saturday, described the situation on the ground as grimmer than anything he had seen before, as he credited crews with pulling off some improbable rescues in the face of such difficult conditions. "Please pray for them and for the rains we desperately need," he wrote.
The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City issued what it described as a "particularly dangerous situation" red flag warning on Friday, the first time it has used that designation in its history. It cited the volatile mix of wind, heat and low humidity, with critical fire-accelerating conditions expected to persist into Sunday.
A region primed to burn
The extreme fire behavior is rooted in conditions that have been building for months, experts have said. Utah recorded its lowest snowpack and warmest winter on record this past season. The snowpack peaked three weeks earlier than normal, leaving soils and vegetation to dry out through spring. Much of the wider region — Nevada, Colorado and beyond — has been gripped by widespread drought after an unusually dry winter.
Utah's state forester, Jamie Barnes, told reporters that fires across the state this season had been moving in ways that had stretched Utah's firefighting capacity to its limits, with new fires beginning closer to populated areas than in previous years.
Utah's Governor Cox declared a state of emergency earlier this week, restricting fireworks displays ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued his own emergency declaration Saturday, authorizing the use of the National Guard to help fight the fires in his state.
The National Interagency Fire Center reported that nearly 3 million acres have burned across the country since the start of the year, faster than the rolling 10-year average. And from Alaska to Florida, crews worked Saturday to contain dozens of blazes, including around three dozen classified as large and uncontained.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service issued red flag warnings across a broad swath of the West, from California through Arizona to New Mexico, where additional fires were also burning.
NPR's Nate Rott contributed to this report.
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