Local Utahns gathered at the scene of a brush fire that set a large part of the eastern hills above the University of Utah ablaze on Saturday, June 20. The smoke coated much of the valley.
Local wildland firefighters geared up in special wildfire-fighting outerwear, along with pickaxes and shovels, before they headed towards the blaze. The flames, only a few hundred feet from medical facilities and venues, moved across the hill.
Fast flame. Quick response.
Dozens of first responders speckled the hill, cutting away dead bushes and conducting controlled burns. The sounds of saws and sirens filled the air.
Firefighters said the fire started near Red Butte Canyon. Guests of a wedding at the Red Butte Garden were told to leave as they saw the flames quickly creep above the hill.
An onlooker who was present at the Natural History Museum of Utah described finely dressed men and women leaving the area. “I parked over there at the museum, there’s a bunch of people dressed up, and I didn’t realize until I called my friend, and she said her sister was working on it,” he said. “It was like a couple of hundred people there, and they had to cancel the whole thing.”
Perham Black, a lab technician in the Human Genetics building, was leaving for the day when he noticed the fire. “I was just working, I had zero intel until I left.” Black said he saw “smoke and flames on the hill” after leaving his building, “which was extremely shocking.”
In an interview with a firefighter, who requested anonymity due to the requirements of his job, had a bird’s eye view from the Red Butte Garden’s parking lot. He said that the fire “spread over the hill into Red Butte Canyon… They got a good stop with air attacks, and they had the planes working on the north end, but the flames just jumped the retarded lines.”
Fighting from the air
The fire spread down the hill. In the air, airplanes and helicopters dumped payloads of water and red fire retardant in low passes. The roaring engines passed just above the ground.
The pilots of these aircrafts had to avoid the power lines that run along the hill. “The helicopters can’t drop right there because of the power lines,” the fireman said. “So we were watching helicopters that were hovering just above those power lines just to make sure they didn’t hit them.”
The fire got within a few hundred feet of the Emma Eccles Jones Medical Research Facility. The firemen on the hill were able to keep the fire steady, letting it crawl towards the north near the Huntsman Center, preventing it from further spreading down the hill.
According to the fireman, the police had a man in custody. “They had somebody that was up there that was just acting super suspicious… The guy didn’t admit to anything, and they didn’t have any proof yet,” he said
The source or cause of the flames has not been identified. A thorough investigation is required to identify and analyze all evidence, human-caused or not.
A show and tell of fighting bushfires
The onlookers in the parking lot and on sidewalks outnumbered the number of first responders. Many came out because of curiosity, wanting to get up close to see what was happening.
Andy Wallace, a local homeowner, said he was “really concerned” about the fire.
Wallace said this isn’t the first time he’s seen a fire in the area. “We had a fire in ‘07 right by our house. Ironically they were right in the middle of building a fire station and they caught the hillside on fire, and almost burned the canyon down. And then back in ‘77 there was a fire that burnt for a couple of months and went all the way to the top of the canyon… so these fires can burn a long time, they can burn a lot of acreage, and they can move really fast too.”
One onlooker saw the flames and wanted to check them out. “We were driving in Millcreek, and we saw the fire… we have nothing else to do, so we might as well come up,” she said.
Others brought their cameras, and some brought their kids to watch from below as firemen controlled the bushfire. “I saw it from my house,” another onlooker said. “I walked from Rice Eccles. So I decided to come and see how really close it gets, because you know Ensign Peak burned down the other day.”
Wallace blamed the lack of rain for why the fire spread so quickly, saying the dryness is “unprecedented.”
“Last summer we almost had no rain at all,” Wallace said. “No monsoonal rain, which we rely on heavily to keep the fire danger down and keep the grass greener. We haven’t had rain in quite a while now.”
Many were alerted by the U’s campus alert system, which told people to shelter in place. An additional text urged its users to “stay away from the impacted area. Please give fire crew space, including not flying private drones over the first that would interfere with firefighting efforts.” Some onlookers got too close, with firemen telling them to back away.
Snuffing out the hot stuff
As the fire drew into the night, first responders, with their glowing headlamps and shovels, were eventually able to move the fire away from all buildings in the area using controlled burns. With the flames just behind the Huntsman Center, firemen in ATVs were able to keep the fire controlled as it wrapped around a hill, away from buildings.
As the fire moved into South Fork Dry Creek, it slowly started to die down. Some parts seemed to spread deeper into the mountains, away from nearby neighborhoods. Another large group of observers watched from the adjacent neighborhood, home to the concrete “U” on the foothills. As the flames died down, laughter from the firefighters could be heard. As they descended the hill to regroup, cheers could be heard from the crowd across the gully.
In the distance, the glow of a much larger fire near Eureka, Utah, was visible.
Further developments on the spread of both fires are ongoing.
[06/21/2026] Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the official title of the fire—”Bonneville Fire”—and additional information from local homeowners.
HANNAH | Jun 23, 2026 at 4:16 pm
well done, Jonathon Downward! This is the best photo of this fire that I have seen.
Ron Downard | Jun 22, 2026 at 12:35 pm
Very good article. Enjoyed reading it and really liked the photos!