Herriman Machine Gun Fire

Okay so this was a very intense experience for me. I felt helpless as was directed to turn away because the area was under evacuation.

Even though we had prepared for a day like today we were not home and so we were not able to reach our 72 hour kits.

We had gone to Jeff's mom and dad's for dinner on Sunday, September 19. We could see and smell a fire earlier that day but it appeared to be on the other side of the mountain. We didn't think too much of it.

As we hung out at Jeff's parents house we could see the smoke it seemed to cover the entire sky. It was time to go home and that's when Jeff's dad told us to call him and let us know we got home safely.

Well as we were driving along 13400 South we got a closer view of the fire. It had come clear down the mountain side - much like you'll see in the pictures below. I couldn't believe how far down the side of the mountain it came. It looked to me like it was next to the Black Ridge Reservoir.

Jeff noticed a lot of traffic heading out of Herriman and said I bet they are evacuating Herriman. I thought he was probably right. We continued towards our home and as we got closer we went slower. They were blocking off the street at that point. Making everyone go into the right hand turn lane. We couldn't turn left to go home. There was a sheriff blocking the way both south and west. It felt so weird.

Hayden started to cry. I began trying to call Jeff's dad to let him know we were being evacuated. No calls would go through. It just kept saying "CALL FAILED." That felt really eerie. This was like a movie. It felt like everyone was in a panic. It was a very tense situation to be in. We thought okay so we'll go west at 12600 South. It seems like it took at least 15 minutes to travel from 13400 South to 12600 South and as we got closer we saw they had that blocked off too.

We decided to go to the Peterson's to see if they knew more. They let us in and we were able to make a few calls from there. We confirmed that we couldn't get home tonight we'd have to try again in the morning. We called Jeff's dad and asked him if we could stay there tonight. He of course said yes.

This is one of the three houses that burned to the ground. :(

Here's one of the many houses that was saved. WOW! Enough said.

And here is an areal view of the damage. Wow it makes you feel amazed that not more homes were lost.