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The Willard Peak Fire in North Ogden rages on the mountainside Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

Photo supplied, Greg Merrill

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Flames from the Willard Peak Fire in North Ogden glow on the mountainside Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

Photo supplied, Hailey Hansen

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Smoke from the Willard Peak Fire in North Ogden rises in the distance as a soccer match unfolds at Fremont High School in Plain City on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

Conner Becker, Standard-Examiner

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Flames from a brush fire make their way up the mountainside above North Ogden as smoke drifts into the sky Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

Jared Lloyd, Standard-Examiner

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The Willard Peak Fire in North Ogden rages on the mountainside Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025.

Photo supplied, Greg Merrill

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NORTH OGDEN — The Willard Peak Fire continued to burn throughout the day Thursday with evacuation orders being held in place while firefighters from several agencies battled the wildfire from the ground and air.

Sierra Hellstrom, public information officer with the Northern Utah Type 3 Incident Management Team, told the Standard-Examiner on Thursday that the fire may look less dramatic than it did on Wednesday — when it was first reported around 2:30 p.m. after being ignited by a vehicle fire in North Ogden — but it’s still a precarious situation.

“We’re currently still seeing some hot spots,” she said. “We’ve got crews hiked up and they’re ordering bucket drops as needed to be able to work those heat sources. Some of the big concerns we have are a predicted storm coming in with dry lighting, and along with that will come wind and more heat. We want to try and hit all of those hot spots so that they don’t threaten the current perimeter. The fire isn’t near as active as it was yesterday, obviously — it’s not putting up a plume — but there still is smoke and there is smoke that’s less visible unless you’re up near the fire area.”

Hellstrom said that as of Thursday afternoon, around 756 acres had burned and containment was still officially at 0%, though she noted that the containment figure could change as evening sets in.

“Often, containment doesn’t get calculated until the evening when crews get back from being out on the ground and they can let us know what areas they feel confident we can call ‘contained,'” she said. “So, containment, you probably won’t see any until tonight, and then that may see some increase. We are making some progress, but we’re just barely getting around this fire. And because it was so big in size and it’s proximity to homes, we want to make sure that we’re very intentional about calling containment when we’re confident that it won’t grow.”

Hellstrom emphasized that, even after an intense night of firefighting, no homes have been lost due to the fire.

“They put up a really good fight last night and were able to hold it, which was a massive success considering the fire behavior that we were seeing,” she said.

She added there have been no reportable accidents or injuries at this time.

Hellstrom said 150 residences had to be evacuated east of 1050 East and north of 2850 North. While these had been due to be lifted around 5 p.m. Thursday, a post on the Weber County Facebook page just after 4 p.m. said that the evacuation orders would remain in place due to anticipated severe weather. A timeline for the return of residents has not been announced, but the post noted that the North View Fire District would make an announcement on the matter later Thursday evening. The post directs people to an evacuation center at 3602 N. 500 West in Pleasant View.

“This is a closed area and there are road barriers for the evacuated areas,” Hellstrom said. “We’ve seen a lot of traffic just driving around them. Just a reminder — stay out of the closed areas, stay off the trails so that we can safely do our jobs.”

She said firefighters faced several challenges throughout Wednesday evening.

“The weather has been one of the biggest challenges,” she said. “We have erratic winds where during the day they blow from the west up the mountain, which is where we saw that big run yesterday. Then in the evenings, we get down-canyon winds, so it starts to blow from the North Ogden Divide towards the northwest corner and starts to swirl, bringing it back around.”

Some of those challenges to firefighting haven’t come from nature but rather people using private drones around the fire.

“We did have a drone incursion that limited our ability to fly,” she said. “We always want to remind the public that drones are not allowed to fly over wildfires.”

Hellstrom said several agencies at the local, state and federal levels are currently involved in fighting the fire.

She said that the priority in the next 24 hours will be building containment of the fire.

The fire also forced Rocky Mountain Power to deenergize the grid feeding nearly 30,000 customers throughout North Ogden and Ogden. Rocky Mountain Power reported on its Facebook page around 10 a.m. Thursday morning that power had been fully restored to customers.