A snapshot from the Yellow Lake Fire’s northwest front

Driving east on S.R. 35 was just as picturesque as ever Monday afternoon, still-golden aspen trees mixed with evergreens, sunlight sparkling on the rushing water of the Provo river. It’s the American West to a T — until it wasn’t.

Past the road closure, sections of the forest’s autumnal palette were spotted with blackened evidence of the Yellow Lake Fire, a wildfire burning since Sept. 28 in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache and Ashley national forests.

Turning left up Soapstone Basin Road, creeping up to 10,000 feet of elevation, fallen trees lay burned. They criss-crossed the now-bare forest floor, ringed in ash like ghostly shadows. In sections of aspen groves the ground was stained an inky black, the white bark giving the illusion of a world without color. It was surreal, a movie set, surely.

Cresting a hill, a view of the most active part of the fire revealed a dramatic scene, scooper planes dropping thousands of gallons of water in an explosion of white against the trees, helicopters swerving in and out of the smoke with red “buckets” dangling beneath their slim bodies.  

For journalists on an escort, dressed in yellow-and-green Nomex suits and hard hats, the action was exciting, a full scale attack to keep this fire from threatening more of the values in the area — vacation homes and roads to the north. 

But for the medic teams stationed in Division H, or Hotel, this was a pretty boring day — a good thing.

The group stood in a small huddle waiting for a call to send them into action. In the meantime, they watched aircraft fly in and out of the smoke column, debated about whose vehicle is bumpiest on the dirt road and talked about what they’ll spend their overtime pay on: for AJ Gile, some new guns and ammo, for Morgan De Marco, a sewing machine.

The fire behavior in this division was a complete change from the day before, much calmer compared to Sunday’s activity, pushing the flames up and over the road. Around 3 p.m., the clouds actually delivered a few blessed minutes of rain — not enough, but better than nothing. 

Air support continued their relentless battle as smoke still billowed from the terrain. Five soaker planes picked up water from Strawberry Reservoir and two helicopters filled buckets from the nearby Soapstone Creek, their almost rhythmic motions keeping a steady stream — literally — of moisture on the fire to keep the heat down. 

Crews were making the most of favorable weather, especially after the fire had ballooned into this area Sunday, putting the total acreage at 31,000 by the night’s briefing. Containment by Tuesday morning was up to 29%.

The forecast does look promising, with precipitation and freezing temperatures expected starting Thursday. It won’t put the fire out entirely, but it should help.

“It would definitely give firefighters an opportunity to get a handle on it, where the fire’s not pushing us fire behavior wise, and we can get people in there along the black edge, or the fire’s edge, with some good control lines,” said Division Leader Mathew Armantrout. 

Until then, the goal is to keep that black edge from growing however they can.