MARYSVALE, Piute County — Several residents in a rural part of Utah are preparing for the worst as a wildfire has ballooned in size over the past 24 hours.
“It’s been incredibly heartbreaking to watch,” said Ellery Gowdy as she has seen the Silver King Fire grow in size throughout the weekend.
Gowdy said most of her extended family lives in Marysvale, but her father’s home is at risk of being burned down.
The Silver King Fire in view of the Ellery Gowdy’s father’s property. (Courtesy Ellery Gowdy)
On Sunday, Marysvale city officials ordered the evacuation of the Upper Bullion Canyon. Throughout the weekend, Gowdy said her father and other residents did what they could to remove nearby foliage and sprayed down their homes as the fire grew closer.
“This has been a really emotional fire for, honestly, everyone involved because there’s a lot of history up in those hills of those mountains,” she said.
Just north of Ellery’s family home, Jonathan Edwards, a pastor in Marysvale, started packing up valuable items from one of the ministry buildings.
“The mountainside where the fire has been raging for the last few days, there’s a lot of fuel there,” Edwards said as fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters flew over.
Read the full story and more from Brianna Chavez on KSLTV.com.