Gully fire races toward homes

COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — A fast-moving wildfire threatened at least two dozen homes here late Friday afternoon, forcing evacuations and causing homeowners to join firefighters to protect their property.

"The homeowners were heroes because they turned on their sprinklers, they got out their hoses," neighbor Melanie Roundy said. "Those guys saved their houses — I'm not kidding."

The fire began burning around 4:30 p.m. in a gully just south of the homes on Parkridge Drive (7400 South).

While Brandon Magleby's mother gathered his siblings and moved the family car out of the garage, the teenager grabbed a hose and wet down the hedges that separated his family's home from the fire down below. With the exception of one bush, the hedges did not survive the blaze, which also licked the edges of the Maglebys' back yard.

Al Roybal hosed down a retaining wall made of railroad ties and a wood fence that he shares with a neighbor until police made him leave.

"When the embers started flying, it started catching up here," Roybal said. "That's when I got a little nervous."

Eighteen firefighting units from four agencies eventually responded to the fire, which burned an estimated 20 to 25 acres, said Jay Fearnley with Unified Fire Authority. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

With temperatures topping 100 degrees Friday and winds blowing flames in the direction of the homes, the fire was hard to fight. "We had a big risk for the fire to breach other homes," Fearnley said.

The fire touched just one home and caused minor exterior damage. A wooden deck and shed of two other homes sustained damage.

Three Salt Lake County Sheriff's deputies who were helping evacuate homes suffered from smoke inhalation and were taken to St. Mark's Hospital with minor injuries.

Kevin Davis' home sustained the most damage, with the fire destroying a wooden shed and a fence in his back yard. Davis had come home early from work and had just woken up when the smoke alarms inside his home began sounding. He rushed into his smoke-filled back yard in time to turn on the sprinklers, but looking at the charred edge of his lawn late Friday, he said he wasn't sure it had done much good.

With the help of neighbors, Davis was able to get family pictures and his 11-year-old daughter's pet hamster, Bubbles, out of the house and away from the fire.

Dee Dee Davis was quilting with her daughter and not at home when the fire started. She learned about the blaze after checking her cell phone and finding 18 messages from her friends and loved ones.

Initially "in a panic," she said she became less worried after discovering the flames stopped in the back yard and never reached her house. "We're lucky," she said. "We'll be fine."

---

E-mail: awelling@desnews.com