Containment of Big Summit Fire expected by Monday; Hamlin Valley evacuated

A photo of the Big Summit Fire, near Hamlin Valley, Utah, July 15, 2020 | Photo courtesy of Iron County Sheriff's Office Facebook page, St George News / Cedar City News

CEDAR CITY — The Big Summit Fire burning in parts of Lincoln County, Nevada and Iron County has engulfed over 4,800 acres as of Wednesday afternoon and is expected to be contained by July 20. 

A photo of the Big Summit Fire, near Hamlin Valley, Utah, July 15, 2020 | Photo courtesy of Iron County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, St George News / Cedar City News

The fire started at around 1 a.m. Monday near Panaca, Nevada, and the cause is still unknown.

Residents of the Hamlin Valley area were evacuated Tuesday as a precaution, and as of Wednesday morning, only one structure has been affected. 

Chris Hanefeld, Bureau of Land Management Ely District Office Public Affairs Specialist, told Cedar City News one cabin in Hamlin Valley was destroyed by the fire. 

“It was under construction, there was an outbuilding with that, but it’s not a primary residence and everybody was evacuated so there were no injuries,” Hanefeld said. 

Hanefeld said the fire is 10% contained and expected to be completely contained by July 20.

A sign informing residents to evacuate the Hamlin Valley area, smoke from the Big Summit Fire can be seen, July 14, 2020 | Photo courtesy of Iron County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, St George News / Cedar City News

“We have engines up along the flank of the fire in Hamlin Valley along that front edge of that fire, and we have heavy equipment up there as well,” Hanefeld said. “Aerial and ground resources are fully suppressing the fire.”

Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands Iron County Fire Warden Ryan Riddle told Cedar City News the evacuation order for Hamlin Valley is currently indefinite.

“We don’t have a date or a time when that evacuation will be lifted,” Riddle said.

Riddle said the BLM Ely, Nevada and Color Country Districts are responding to the fire, in addition to the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands as well as resources from Iron County including the Sheriff’s Office, fire departments and emergency management.

Around 285 personnel are working to suppress the fire, and Riddle said responders are working to add an additional team to the containment efforts.

“We’re working on getting a Type 2 Incident Management Team in place,” Riddle said. “That’ll give us more supervision, more overhead, more capabilities to manage the fire.”

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2020, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!