Quail Fire in SLC

Anyone know how the Quail Fire has affected/is affecting climbing areas? From the photo on the page there it looks like it's burning up Bells Canyon? I was on Twin Peaks, Sunrise, and Dromedary today and there was a ton of smoke up there. I thought LCC was on fire.

Here's the smoke over Sunrise Peak.

According to KSL American Fork canyon is was evacuated and is closed. I think the fire is right by Lambert Park, which is north (I think) of the mouth of American Fork canyon

A couple of my buds came down Lone via Alpine this afternoon. They had no problems getting down but they saw SAR on dirtbikes clearing out the hamongogs

Did they get smoked out in the cirque or get down before the fire started?

Mine was the first car turned away at AF this afternoon, so we went to BCC.

On the drive home I could see the south line of the fire clearly. It hadn't reached the ridge separating AF Canyon from where the fire is burning (and the wind is from the south, so it might not ever crest the ridge).

Also, there was much less smoke than earlier in the afternoon. (I got to the mouth of AF Canyon at 4:00pm. I was driving home on I-15 about 9:30pm.)

I was climbing in the Cirque today and the smoke never really reached the meadow or peaks. We were on the summit wall when it started and watched it for the remaining pitches. It was truly intense.

AF Canyon still appears to be closed: (road closures appear in the upper right of the page under "Incidents").

Quail Fire information (as well as information about all other major Utah wildfires) can be found here.

Channel 13 seems to be regularly updating their coverage.

I was climbing in the Pentapitch area last night, the 3rd, till after dark and we could just barely see the smoke up the canyon. We couldn't even smell it. Looked like you would near Alta but it wasn't reaching us.

Alex Quitiquit wrote:I was climbing in the Cirque today and the smoke never really reached the meadow or peaks. We were on the summit wall when it started and watched it for the remaining pitches. It was truly intense.

There was still some snow and afternoon running water in the cirque as of Saturday. My guess is it won't last much longer though. We were camped in the secondary basin just west of the cirque proper and used a tiny stream for water. The flow rate noticeably dropped over the 4 days we spent there.
BTW, we were just below the second meadow when we noticed the starting fire... got us worried for a while so we hurried down. By the time we reached the trailhead 90 minutes later, the fire was most of its way up to the ridge... scary.

Specimen wrote: I was thinking about heading up to the cirque tomorrow. Is there still runoff/snow to be used for water? I know it was a super dry winter and I'm just wondering if I need to bring any water up there. Thanks.

Specimen wrote: I was thinking about heading up to the cirque tomorrow. Is there still runoff/snow to be used for water? I know it was a super dry winter and I'm just wondering if I need to bring any water up there. Thanks.

The cirque and the Alpine approach are officially closed because of the fire:

According to this KSL story the AF Canyon road is now open.

The latest Forest Service closure order indicates the same.

Note, however, that entire Lone Peak Wilderness is still closed.

Answering my own question about the fire affecting the Alpine approach: apparently, as of yesterday (07/05/12) it had not (other than from the closure, that is).
Here's the map:

Bummer, I was planning on heading up to Lone Peak tomorrow morning.

The Lone Peak cirque and all standard approaches are now open again