Western wildfires rage across Utah, destroying cabins and ski resort

The Cottonwood Fire burned through rugged terrain in southwest Utah, grew to more than 144 square miles and destroyed part of a ski resort and summer cabins as hot, dry and windy weather drove new starts across the West. In Beaver County, crews were still assessing damage with no immediate estimate, while Gov. Spencer Cox called the situation bleak and thanked firefighters for "several miraculous stops and saves."

Cliffs and steep slopes slowed the fight on the Cottonwood Fire because dozers and engines could not easily reach the terrain. Hundreds of firefighters were arriving in Utah to hold the line on new ignitions and on blazes that kept growing under critical fire weather, with southwesterly winds gusting from 30 to 60 mph and humidity falling to 5% to 15% across northern Arizona, eastern Utah, western Colorado and far northwestern New Mexico.

Utah’s fire danger has been magnified by a winter that left the state parched before summer heat arrived. In May, the Utah Division of Water Resources put the state at its warmest winter on record and its lowest snowpack levels ever recorded, with snowpack peaking about three weeks early and at the lowest level since 1930. Cox declared a statewide state of emergency on May 21 because of extreme drought, and snowpack provides 95% of Utah’s water supply.

Three firefighters died June 27 during a burnover while responding to the Knowles and Gore fires along the Colorado-Utah border. Two others were injured and taken to a hospital after the crew deployed emergency shelters when flames cut off escape routes, and federal authorities later identified the dead as Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan; Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona; and Sydney Watson, 27, of Warrior, Alabama. The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stood with the U.S. Forest Service in supporting the firefighters’ families, friends and colleagues.

The National Interagency Fire Center raised the national preparedness level to 4 at 7:30 a.m. MDT on June 29, signaling significant activity across multiple regions and heavy demand on resources. As of late June, the center had roughly 36 large incidents being suppressed, with 35,247 year-to-date wildfires and nearly 3 million acres burned, more than the 10-year average. In Colorado, 20 of the state's 20 largest wildfires have occurred since 2002, the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire remains the largest on record at 208,913 acres, and the Lee Fire became the state's fifth-largest in 2025.