When Scott Cory heard about a fire brewing south of Millard County, near the Milford Flat region, he knew it was going to be a long day.

Cory, a self-proclaimed "man of many hats," works as a sergeant for the Millard County Sheriff's Department, Kanosh's volunteer fire chief and also serves on the town council, although some say he has threatened to resign on numerous occasions.

Needless to say, he knows a little bit about the area.

When the call came July 6, 2007, Cory and his crew sprang into action with fire trucks and hoses. He knew the drill all too well.

On that day, the second day of Utah's largest wildfire in history, Cory and the other firefighters throughout southern Utah had their hands full in containing the blaze.

According to CNN reports from that day, the fire reached close to its full size, burning more than 160,000 acres and threatening more than 300 homes between Kanosh and Milford. Two of the earliest deaths from the fire also occurred on July 7 when two motorcyclists from California were killed in an accident on I-15 in the middle of the midnight-black day.

Called to Serve

Scott Cory was used to overseeing local and federal firefighters by now. As the chief of the Kanosh volunteer fire department, it is his responsibility to coordinate local and federal firefighting operations in the area.

The Kanosh fire chief, who looks like a model for a big and tall store, showed little excitement over the Milford Flat Fire.

"The younger volunteers sounded scared and panicky [on the radio]," Cory later recalled, "but I've been doing this for 30 years."

That experience would prove vital to the well-being of his hometown at 2 p.m., when a cloud of thick black smoke enveloped the area and turned a high-noon sunny day into midnight with a new moon. Utah Highway Patrol blame the fire and its accompanying black-out smokes for the death of a Rowland Heights, Calif., couple while riding a motorcycle on I-15. An unknown driver of a vehicle struck and killed the pair but has never been identified.

One of Cory's biggest battles occurred on a lone stretch of I-15 a few miles south of the Kanosh exit. It was here that Cory and his group of volunteer firefighters attempted to make a final stand against the Milford Flat Fire.

"If we would have lost it there, we would have lost Kanosh," Cory said.

But just as Cory prepared to join the crowd of local firefighters, he had to "change hats" and direct his attention to the south. Quickly becoming Sgt. Cory, he got a call to go to Cove Fort nearly 22 miles away, to help with the evacuation of the Cove Fort residents and missionaries. Cory took off driving, plunging into the thick smoke before him.

"They called on the radio and said 'Cove Fort just blew up,'" Cory said. "I knew they let everybody back in Cove Fort [after an earlier evacuation], but I didn't know if they had got everybody out this time."

Cory drove up Baker Canyon in pitch black, passing semi trucks on fire, on the heels of a firestorm. They were from Richfield and Monroe and got hung up in traffic with the masses trying to evacuate the area.

Sacred Ground

When Cory arrived at Cove Fort, the flames were already on the doorstep of the southern Utah historic site. LDS church senior missionaries had already vacated the area and only a handful of men were trying to defend the fort.

One of those staying behind was Fillmore Mayor Dave Christensen. The former Fillmore Utah Stake President works as the LDS Church's physical facilities representative in Millard County, to maintain the Cove Fort site and other church properties.

One maintenance missionary said these site guys do their job so the tour missionaries can do theirs.

Christensen, living out of his truck for two days while fire raged all around him, kept his well-used pickup truck off the road behind the fort during the night, and spent his days doing everything in his power to make sure the fort didn't burn to the ground. He dubbed his not-so-fabulous living conditions the "Cove Fort Hilton."

By the time Cory arrived at "the Hilton," a large firestorm was ready to knock down the LDS Church's property. A strong wind was pushing the fire eastward at speeds of 70 miles per hour, threatening to take out the fort, the nearby trailer park that houses the missionaries and a Chevron fuel station near the corner of I-15 and I-70.

"I've seen some firestorms in my day, but this one scared me," Cory said.

And then, in some form of a miracle, the winds changed.

Blowing strongly to the east, the breeze switched direction and sent the fire's flames back into themselves. The fort, the missionaries' RV park and the fuel station were spared, with little more damage than scorch marks and a couple of scratches.

"The Lord said it wasn't time, and he shifted the wind back the way it came," Cory said. "Someone a lot bigger than me stopped that fire, or we would've been goners. That piece of ground [Cove Fort] is pretty sacred."

A worse future?

Now as Cory reflects on the devastating effects of last year's wildfire, he can't help but think this year could be just as bad.

"As we get more cheat grass, we'll go from a slow-moving fire to a fast-moving fire," Cory said.

The long, cold winter doesn't help Millard County's fire forecast, either. With shorter grass on the plains, Cory says a fire could easily scorch mile after mile of Utah countryside. Worse yet, South Mountain near Kanosh has yet to experience a large storm similar to last year's milestone.

"South Mountain hasn't burned yet, and if it gets cooking, that'll take the fire over the top," Cory said. "Also, I-15 on the east side is prime [for a fire]."

Copyright Brigham Young University 1 Jul 2008