Fire breaks out in foothills above Provo

A fire on a mountain west of Utah Lake was expected to be contained Thursday night, fire officials said, while across the valley a new fire erupted in the foothills above Provo.

The latest fire began just north of 4750 North, east of Canyon Road, Thursday afternoon.

Fire engineer Glenn Hart didn't have a cause for the fire, but one homeowner had a guess.

"I saw someone mowing with a big tractor in the pasture north of us," said April Baird, who lives on 4750 North. "Not long after that there was a fire in the pasture. They could have sparked on a rock or something."

Hart said crews were called away from a retirement ceremony for Provo Fire Chief Coy Porter.

"We got dispatched out and came up here," Hart said, speaking from Eastlawn Cemetery. He said units from stations 1, 2 and 3 with a brush unit from Station 5 were on the scene.

Crews thought they had the fire contained at about 4:45 p.m., but quick winds caused massive flare-ups. Urgent messages over Hart's radio indicated fire on all three sides of firefighters working the northern edge of the blaze at Eastlawn Cemetery. The fire then jumped a natural gas line fire break and headed east toward homes, a horse ranch and Squaw Peak.

Construction crews with Niels Fugal Sons Co. were in the area laying gas pipeline and had two thousand-gallon water trucks on hand. The company allowed firefighters to use the trucks to help fight the blazes.

Members of the three-generation family-owned Eastlawn Cemetery were on hand, concerned about their property.

"We're just worried," said Kathy Judd, whose father, David Grow, owns the cemetery. "Our concern is that it will go up into where people are buried."

"Our biggest worry is all the trees we're losing," Dean Judd said. "Everybody loved the trees here, and now we're losing tons of them."

In the residential area just off Canyon Road, homeowners worked to protect their homes with hoses and by cutting branches overhanging fences.

"We were told to be ready to evacuate," said Jacque de Gaston, homeowner on 4750 North. She and neighbors focused on wetting things down in their yards, including stacks of firewood..

Canyon Crest Elementary School was opened as a command center.