Halfway Hill Fire’s damage to drainage raises flood worries

As the Halfway Hill Fire nears 80 percent containment, local officials are busy working to mitigate other wildfire-related calamities, namely potential flooding.

County officials declared a state of emergency on July 15; the county commission ratified it last Tuesday. The declaration allows the county to tap into emergency funds at the state and federal levels. 

Meanwhile, it’s been nearly all hands on deck since the Halfway Hill Fire began to burn on July 8—it is one of dozens and dozens of human-caused fires in Utah this year.

It was a county road department employee, Supervisor Brandon Winget, who first alerted authorities to the fire, according to Dean Draper, a county commissioner. 

“He was on Scipio Hill and he saw it. He went down, grabbed a grader and started cutting a firelline. If it hadn’t been for the road department and a couple of private citizens up in Virginia Hills, Virginia Hills would have been consumed by fire,” Draper said.

Winget also received high praise from Fillmore City officials last week, who acknowledged the long hours Winget and other road department employees have spent in the forest nearby, building debris basins and performing other mitigation work.

Fillmore residents thanked firefighters in a number of ways since the start of the Halfway Hill Fire on July 8. From cooking meals to painting signs, residents supported fire crews throughout their stay. The number of firefighters was reduced last weekend to just more than 100 personnel.

“We really owe our gratitude to Brandon (Winget) and the road department for what they are doing out there…they’ve been putting all their efforts into protecting this community,” Fillmore City Councilman Kyle Monroe said last week. 

Winget did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Another public servant who received high praise was Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.

She happened to be on an ATV ride in Millard County when she heard about some of the concerns local officials have regarding the wildfire’s aftermath. 

After the ATV ride, she requested a tour of the fire ravaged area. Multiple officials reported that as soon as Henderson understood what resources were needed, she and her team worked to swiftly get them here. 

“She pulled through for us and took care of business,” Fillmore Mayor Mike Holt said. 

Fillmore is bracing for years of effort to contain the danger now lurking of sudden flooding in the city after Halfway Hill did considerable damage to the drainage systems of nearby Chalk Creek and Pine Creek.

A helicopter gets ready to drop water on a hot spot on the Halfway Hill Fire. The blaze is nearly 80-percent contained. A new incident team came aboard over the weekend.

Robert Worley, an engineer with Sunrise Engineering, updated city officials on some of his concerns after surveying the damaged area. 

He said flooding risked seeing debris race down the nearby mountainside and into existing water and sewer system infrastructure. He said a large storm could knock out service to various parts of the city, contaminate water supplies or even rip out culverts, pipes and other system implements. 

“The first question that’s been asked is, okay, can we handle a storm…well, yes we can if it’s a small one. If it’s a larger storm, that’s a different scenario,” Worley told officials. 

Part of Chalk Creek’s 58 square miles of drainage was damaged alongside some 95 percent of Pine Creek’s drainage, he said. Those creeks essentially drain right into the city. Under normal conditions, the mountain is able to absorb a lot of the moisture from a storm. However, the wildfire and heat it induced changes the hydrologic properties of the soil, making it less able to absorb water. 

“So it (water) runs off it like it would run off a table,” Worley described. 

Work is underway to build large basins as well as other structures to help steer floodwater from vulnerable areas, such as nearby springs, and into basins or roadways. City officials are also looking to spend as much as $80,000 on isolation valves to close off select sewer pipes, especially where water from the mountain can cross the lines and wreck havoc. 

City Councilman Dennis Alldredge said residents can expect a years-long effort to protect the city from flooding. 

“It’s wonderful to see the cooperation of a lot of people involved in this. But I think it is important to remember it’s not going to be six days but maybe six years,” he said of the work. 

With the monsoon season firmly underway, Alldredge said the prospect of a big storm in Fillmore’s future is high. 

“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he said. 

As the danger now shifts from fire to flood, the number of personnel fighting the Halfway Hill blaze is also shifting. The workforce was reduced to 116 from more than 500 last week. The fire was reported to be about 77 percent contained as of Monday morning. 

Crews continue to mop up, securing control lines and working the edges of the fire to keep it from spreading. 

The blaze burned 11,701 acres, but did almost no property damage that’s been reported. 

Four people were arrested and charged with Class A misdemeanor counts of abandoning a campfire after the blaze was traced to them by investigators. The four appeared in District Court last week, where their cases were continued. 

One group wants the suspects to face even more criminal charges than they already do. 

Animal rights group PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, called on local prosecutors to up the ante on the suspects—Michael Joseph Patti, Darri Rae DeWolfe, Talon Lance Kessler, and Tyler Russell Smith. 

In a July 19 letter to County Attorney Pat Finlinson, the organization asked that the four suspects also face animal cruelty charges. 

“Although no humans lost their lives, the enormous number of wild animals who resided on the nearly 12,000 acres of land burned in the fire were undoubtedly less fortunate,” the letter reads. “Such catastrophic fires inflict terror and suffering on many animals and cause them to endure prolonged, agonizing deaths.” 

The group also referred prosecutors to cases in California and Oregon, where people have been successfully prosecuted in similar cases involving wildfires. 

Finlinson could not be reached for comment. 

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