Hundreds flee blaze

The fire stretched for about eight miles along I-15. Intermittent closures of the highway have frustrated travelers since Saturday night.

At one point earlier in the day, the Blue Springs Fire was less than three miles away from the community, at the north end of Washington County. But it inched closer as the night progressed.

Residents were given an evacuation notice Sunday, which meant it was time to pack up valuables and be ready to go when the siren sounded.

"We've been married 52 years, so there's a lot of memories," 74-year-old Joy Simpson, who lives in Harmony Heights with her husband Cecil, said as she prepared to leave. "It's hard to pick what to pack, but I got the important papers and all the photo albums and pictures. We're ready to go, if we need to."

Simpson said the local fire department headed into the hills during the day to cut down trees that posed a potential fire danger to other homes further up the hillside. Residents were told they could gather at an LDS stake house in Cedar City if they needed a place to go.

"A lot of us have cut down a lot of that grass so it can't burn," Simpson said from her home about an hour before the evacuation order sounded.

On the west side of the county, firefighters continued to douse hot spots left behind from the 68,000-acre Westside Complex Fire. Officials expected to contain that fire by early today, said David Boyd, a BLM fire information officer.

"The Westside is burning in rough country right now, so we're sending some of those crews over to another fire that's about four air miles away from Motoqua," Boyd said.

The Halfway Fire crossed over from the Nevada border into Utah and is now threatening the dozen families that live in the isolated community.

"We're sending structure engines there, just in case, to protect homes," said Boyd. "The community is on a one-hour evacuation alert notice tonight. The Beaver Dam Wash will give us a really good defense line, though."

Motoqua residents suffered in January when rising floodwaters gobbled up several homes.

Darrell Folkersen of Hurricane knows what it's like to watch flames lick at the edge of his property. A 2,000-acre wildfire was within 10 feet of his house when a heavy air tanker dropped several loads of red fire retardant on the blaze.

"We had to really run from the heat; it was like an ocean wave," said Folkersen, whose home, cars, trees and other possessions were covered with splotches of the ruddy red mixture.

He said there were moments when he thought the house was a goner.

"We thought we were going to lose it and then the air tanker showed up, flying about 50 feet above the hill," he said.said Folkersen. "They risked their lives for us. I want to find those guys and thank them."

In the meantime, Folkersen and his neighbors have a big cleanup job ahead. And the best way to do that is with good old elbow grease and lots of water, Boyd said.

"Well, it's phosphate, which is essentially a fertilizer," he said. "The sooner you get it off, the fewer problems you'll have later."

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Contributing: Jennifer Dobner, Associated Press

E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com