A fast-moving wildfire in southern Utah has grown into the largest active blaze in the United States, scorching more than 70,000 acres of the Fishlake National Forest with no containment and forcing evacuations as forecasters warned of extreme fire weather. The Cottonwood Fire, which Governor Spencer Cox has said may already be the most destructive in state history, prompted the National Weather Service's Salt Lake City office to issue its first-ever Particularly Dangerous Red Flag Warning on Friday, June 26.
The fire was discovered on Monday, June 23, and investigators have determined it was human-caused, though the specific source has not been released. It spread with remarkable speed, advancing roughly 20 miles in a single day and remaining at zero percent containment as it pushed across the forest in Beaver County, in the mountainous terrain of south-central Utah.
The Particularly Dangerous Red Flag Warning is an exceptionally rare designation, reserved for conditions in which fire behavior is expected to be at its most extreme. Forecasters warned of wind gusts up to 45 mph and sharply falling humidity on Friday, a combination that can drive rapid fire growth and make active blazes far harder to fight. Officials said the warning was the first the Salt Lake City office had ever issued.
Mandatory evacuations were ordered for a number of communities in the fire's path, including Eagle Point Resort, Merchant Valley, HiLo Estates and Arrowhead Summer Homes. The Eagle Point Resort area reported significant property loss, though officials had not released a full count of destroyed structures as crews focused on protecting lives and slowing the fire's advance.
Firefighters faced hazardous conditions beyond the flames themselves. Officials warned that falling trees and downed power lines posed dangers to crews operating in steep, timbered country, and the high winds in the forecast threatened to push the fire in unpredictable directions. With containment at zero, the priority remained keeping the blaze away from populated areas and key infrastructure.
The fire is one of several burning across the West, where an early and intense start to the wildfire season has stretched firefighting resources across Utah, Nevada and Wyoming. Utah has already contended with other significant blazes this month, and the Cottonwood Fire's scale and speed have made it the most serious of them.
Local officials are also looking past the immediate threat to a second danger: flooding. Beaver Mayor Matt Robinson raised concerns that once the monsoon season arrives, rain falling on freshly burned slopes — stripped of vegetation that normally absorbs runoff — could send debris flows and flash floods toward communities, particularly along the Beaver River. Burn scars are notoriously prone to such flooding for years after a fire.
For now, the fight remains on the fire line. With the blaze uncontained, the winds rising and a rare warning of the most dangerous possible conditions in effect, crews were bracing for what officials described as the potential for erratic, rapid fire growth — and residents under evacuation orders were left waiting to learn what, if anything, the flames had spared.