Machine Gun Fire - Herriman Utah

I was going through this morning's new posts on the wildlandfire.com hotlist forums when I saw this Wildland Fire Hotlist thread on the Machine Gun Fire in Herriman Utah (near Salt Lake City). Being intrigued by the reports of damage to homes as well as evacuations affecting some 1,600 homes I followed up on this fire. The video that I have embedded above was posted to youtube by the Salt Lake Tribune showing footage of the fire that was shot last night.

I have been accessing reports, including live streams from the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City (fox13now) on and off for the last few hours. Most if not all of the information that I am reporting here on the fire has come from fox13now, and those of you wanting current information might want to check them out, or check out the Salt Lake Tribune. There is also a twitter page for the fire. The fire was started at Camp Williams near Herriman on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 19), the National Guard confirmed in an interview carried by fox13now that live ammo was the cause of the fire. From what I understand by listening to weather reports on fox13now, the winds were upwards of 50 mph yesterday afternoon making things extremely difficult for firefighters working the fire. By later in the evening, at least three houses had been destroyed, residents of some 1,600 houses had been evacuated, and the fire had grown to about 3,500 acres.

As of this writing (3:20 PM EDT), evacuation orders are still in place. Winds today are somewhat calmer but are forecasted to pick up tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 21), though not at levels experienced yesterday. There is a type III incident team in place, I heard a couple of interviews with one of their officers. Earlier this morning it was reported that the fire had grown to 10,000 acres but this figure was scaled back to 3,500 acres according to a recent fox13now interview with the type III incident officer. In this same interview that I heard live only a short time ago on fox13now, she reported that there were three heavy airtankers, two SEATs, and a number of helos (including National Guard Black Hawke's) working the fire. I have not been able to find any videos of the air operations, but I did see the following video, also posted to youtube by the Salt Lake Tribune with aerial footage of the fire damage.