BEAVER, Utah (AP) — Wildfire activity has intensified across the western United States, as consecutive days of hot, dry and windy weather have fueled flames in Utah, Arizona and elsewhere as new fires popped up across the region.The largest blaze, the Cottonwood Fire, was burning in rugged terrain in southwest Utah. It ballooned Saturday to more than 144 square miles (373 square kilometers) after marching through canyons and mountainsides, destroying part of a ski resort and other summer cabins along the way.Authorities in Beaver County began working with fire teams on Saturday to assess the extent of the damage, but no estimates were immediately available. Gov. Spencer Cox in a post on social media called it bleak, but he thanked crews for what he called “several miraculous stops and saves.” The cliffs and steep slopes have made the job even harder, said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the fire.
“It’s hard to get dozers and other heavy equipment into that. It’s hard to get engines into that,” she said. “It doesn’t make it impossible to firefight, but it does just kind of slow things down.”
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Hundreds of firefighters have been arriving in the arid state to battle new starts as well as those that have been growing because of what forecasters called critical fire weather — dangerously low humidity levels, warm temperatures and gusty winds. The danger is even higher this year because of Utah’s record-low snowpack and its warmest winter on record. Much of the West is grappling with similar conditions, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
