Killer Utah fire still raging

NEOLA, Duchesne County — Federal disaster officials are expected to be on the scene today of the deadly North Neola Fire, which killed three men. Late Saturday, fire officials said they could not forecast when the eastern Utah wildfire might be contained.

Officials on Saturday released the names of the men who were killed in the blaze, which has consumed more than 20,000 acres between Neola and Whiterocks and destroyed at least a half-dozen homes.

Uintah County Sheriff Jeff Merrell said 63-year-old George Houston and his son, 43-year-old Tracy Houston, died Friday night when the fire caught them in a hay field in the Farm Creek area north of Whiterocks.

Tracy Houston's 11-year-old son escaped the flames after he was told by his father to run to the road, Merrell said. The boy led firefighters and law enforcement back to the scene of the deaths. He was taken to Uintah Basin Medical Center, where he was treated and released.

A third man, from whom the Houstons were buying hay, also died, the sheriff said. Roger Roberson, 75, suffered extensive burns and was taken to UBMC before being airlifted to a Wasatch Front hospital. He died of his injuries during the night.

The three men were attempting to hook up a sprinkler system to protect Roberson's farm, Merrell said.

The Farm Creek and Elkhorn Loop areas have been devastated by the fire, which started Friday about 9 a.m. alongside state Route 121 near Neola on land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The BIA ordered evacuations of both areas, and the neighboring community of Whiterocks, after the wind shifted late Friday and began driving the fire into bone-dry stands of pinion-juniper and sagebrush.

Merrell said the evacuations were under way when the Houstons and Roberson were killed.

"A fire wall came over that hill," the sheriff said, pointing to an area west of the field where the men died. "The officers who were here said it just started sucking up all the air."

Whiterocks resident Edson Gardner witnessed the explosive nature of the fire as it came down the hill toward the hay field.

"It was like a herd of horses coming down the hill," Gardner said.