Family hikes 37 miles to escape fire in Utah
By Sarah Martin
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SALT LAKE CITY (KSL) — A family hiking and fishing in the backcountry this week was forced to flee the fire on foot — they hiked 37 miles round trip to get to safety.
The Beulah Fire is growing in the High Uintas; crews say it’s now a category 4 fire at 2,310 acres burned in the wilderness near Bear Lake.
The Weavers had planned a camping trip at a back-country lake, three days of leisurely hiking and fishing, but they woke up on their first morning to a massive plume and rescue helicopters. The group of five was able to get texts through a satellite connection and communicate with fire crews.
Ana Weaver said, “We were in touch with fire crews, told them where we were camping, and they told us to leave ASAP. It’s closer than four miles to you. So we packed up our camp in, like ten minutes. It just got more and more urgent and definitely scary.”
The group could see helicopters responding to the fire, but decided that while it was still safe to do so, they would try to hike out instead of calling for help.
Nate Weaver, Ana’s dad, led the group as the only one with backcountry hiking experience. “The kids were pretty worried about the situation, but I’m not a huge fan of consuming emergency resources if they’re not absolutely necessary.”
“We had a compass, and then we met some people who had a map,” Ana said. “We found the closest trailhead possible, which ended up being like 37 miles plus round trip for us.”
They had access to satellite messaging through a recent iPhone update. Ana explained, “We would text my mom through the satellite connection and be like, where are we? Which direction should we go? And she would tell us, like North, south, east, west, and we would walk for another hour, send our location, do the whole thing again.”
The Weavers say their experience is a perfect example of why you always need a plan B in the back country.
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