The Machine Gun Fire or Camp Williams Fire was a

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...

in Herriman,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

in 2010 that burned several

dwellings In law, a dwelling (also known as a residence or an abode) is a self-contained unit of accommodation used by one or more households as a home - such as a house, apartment, mobile home, houseboat, vehicle, or other "substantial" structure. The ...

. It was started by a mistake at a firing range by National Guard troops on a training exercise. 4,351 acres burned,

approximately An approximation is anything that is intentionally similar but not exactly equal to something else. Etymology and usage The word ''approximation'' is derived from Latin ''approximatus'', from ''proximus'' meaning ''very near'' and the prefix '' ...

1600 homes were evacuated, and 3 homes were destroyed.

Origin

Live fire

50 caliber machine gun The M2 machine gun or Browning .50 caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed towards the end of World War I by John Browning. Its design is similar to Browning's earlier M1919 Browning machine gun, ...

training had been scheduled at

Camp Williams Camp W. G. Williams, commonly known as Camp Williams, also known as Army Garrison Camp Williams, is a National Guard training site operated by the Utah National Guard. It is located south of Bluffdale, west of Lehi, and north of Saratoga Sprin ...

for the afternoon of Sunday, 19 September 2010. As is common in the area during the late summer, the east winds off of the

Wasatch Mountains The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the ...

picked up in the afternoon. On the previous Thursday afternoon, the

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the ...

issued a Fire Weather Watch for Saturday and Sunday. On Friday afternoon, it upgraded the alert to a

Red Flag Warning A red flag warning is a forecast warning issued by the National Weather Service in the United States to inform the public, firefighters, and land management agencies that conditions are ideal for wildland fire combustion, and rapid spread. After d ...

for the entire weekend. Despite the dry conditions and base protocols that interdicted live-fire training during Red Flag conditions, a unit of the

Utah National Guard The Utah National Guard consists of the: * Utah Army National Guard **19th Special Forces Group (Airborne) **65th Field Artillery Brigade **85th WMD CST **97th Troop Command **115th Engineer Group (CBT) **204th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade **211 ...

commenced the live-fire exercise, although no highly flammable tracer rounds were used. Shrapnel ignited the brush. The

admitted full responsibility.Fox 13 Web Staff (24 September 2010
"Herriman Fire: Machine Gun Wildfire now 100 percent contained"
''Fox 13 News''; archive
here
by

WebCite WebCite was an on-demand archive site, designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material on the web by taking snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time when a blogger or a scholar cited or quoted f ...

Suppression

After the fire was noted on the

Machine Gun Firing Range, on Sunday afternoon, fire crews from the camp with the assistance of two

Black Hawk helicopters The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-blade, twin-engine, medium-lift utility military helicopter manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft. Sikorsky submitted the S-70 design for the United States Army's Utility Tactical Transport Aircraft System ( ...

attempted to put out the blaze, but were unsuccessful, and the fire, whipped by dry winds, burned northwestward across Oak Springs Hollow.

firefighters notified the Utah Unified Fire Authority who mobilized local fire agencies. However the fire crossed Shep's Ridge, and continued on to burn some houses on the edge of Herriman. The fire had burned over 4,351 acres and was fully contained by 24 September 2010. The

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exe ...

(FEMA) authorized the use of federal funds in paying the costs of fighting the fire. FEMA approved the Fire Management Assistance Grant under a statute which provides reimbursement of up to 75 percent of the state's qualifying fire fighting costs. Evacuations continued into Tuesday September 21, 2010, although the number of homes under evacuation orders lessened to 450 homes. The same day, it was announced that the fire was 50 percent contained. Several residents were allowed back to their homes.Herriman Fire 50 percent contained, evacuations still remain in effect
''Fox 13'' Salt Lake City, Utah.

Notes

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External links

"Blaze Rage: Witness videos of 'Machine Gun' Fire in Herriman, Utah "
YouTube video
"Mandatory Evacuation Area - Camp Williams Fire - 20 September 2010"
City of Herriman History of Salt Lake County, Utah Wildfires in Utah 2010 wildfires in the United States 2010 in Utah Military in Utah