The Threat to Eagle Point

The blog posts are coming fast and furious now as weather and climate extremes are having a big impact on several regions and in particular on wildfires in Utah.  

I woke this morning in Innsbruck and learned of the Cottonwood Fire that is burning and spreading explosively in the Tushar Mountains east of Beaver.  Utah Fire Info reports that it was discovered on Monday (June 22) and it has already burned 31,000 acres with 0% containment.  The most recent mapping from Utah Fire Info puts the eastern perimeter across the crest of the Tushar Mountains and the northern perimeter into the Eagle Point Ski Resort area.  Such mapping doesn't capture local details, so we can only hope that the homes and infrastructure there are still safe.  

Source: https://utah-fire-info-utahdnr.hub.arcgis.com/

Yesterday afternoon's Aqua/MODIS imagery from NASA shows a dense plume of smoke extending eastward from just east of Beaver, across the Tushar Mountains, Sevier Plateau, Capital Reef National Park, and San Rafael Swell.  Look closely and you can see a couple of white spots just downstream (east) of the Tushars that are likely produced by pyrocumulus clouds fueled by the intense heat and moisture fluxes from the fire.  My guess is that the updrafts producing these began upstream (west) of the Tushar Crest and grew in depth as they moved downstream, eventually producing the overshooting tops evident in the satellite imagery east of the Tushar Crest.

The explosive growth of the fire is really apparent in yesterday's satellite imagery.  This should be required viewing for anyone who wants to play with fireworks, light a campfire, or do other activities that can potentially cause a spark and eventually grow rapidly into a massive fire.  

Source: https://weather.cod.edu/satrad

There are only a couple of observing sites in that area that I could find.  One is the Beaver 15E site operated by the Utah Climate Center.  This is speculative and requires confirmation, but during the day yesterday the temperature at that site spiked to 110F, far hotter than the previous day and possibly a reflection of the intense heat from neary wildfire.  It appears that it survived, at least for now.  

Source: Mesowest

The wind sensor at that site appears to be DOA, but a bit to the north, Pacific Corp operates the Kays Meadow site.  That site illustrates well the meteorology that contributed to yesterday's explosive fire spread.  At around 1600 MDT, the RH was below 10% and winds gusted to 50 mph.  

Source: Mesowest

I'm not sure if that site was in the fire perimeter yesterday as it is close to the edge in the mapping on Utah Fire Info.  Also unclear is the degree to which those winds reflect the background flow or fire-driven flows.  Others with better data who are smarter than me will need to evaluate that as well as the accuracy of the wind sensor.  

Hope that some progress can be made through Thursday, because the forecast thereafter is very problematic.  The Euro for example brings a deep trough into the northwest United States and the forecast for 0000 UTC 27 June (1800 MDT Friday) shows the associated cold front over northwest utah with the Cottonwood fire area in strong, dry, southwesterly flow at 700-hPa.  

The NWS has already highlighted the critical fire weather conditions expected on Friday and Saturday.  

Source: NWS.  Downloaded 0153 MDT Wednesday 24 June 2026.

Update: 1130 MDT Wed June 24

KSL now reporting that Eagle Point was destroyed.  

https://www.ksl.com/article/51539013/cottonwood-fire-destroys-southern-utah-ski-resort

A sad loss, but let's hope there are no fatalities.