Taken by KSL TV's Dan Rascon on the scene in Bountiful
BOUNTIFUL — The Gun Range Fire in the foothills of Bountiful forced 400 families to evacuate their homes in the dead of the night on Friday.
Helen Day was one of the evacuees. She is 101 years old and lives alone not far from the command center set up to address the fire burning near Centerville. Her neighbor, Keith McMullin, was the one that woke Day up and quickly got her to an evacuation center.
McMullin is the CEO of Deseret Management Corp, the parent company of KSL Newsradio.
Day says everything happened so quickly that some of her family members didn’t know she already been evacuated.
That includes one of Day’s grandsons, who had called a police officer to help him evacuate his elderly grandmother after learning of the Gun Range Fire.
“And so when the police came with him,” Day told KSL Newsradio, “he knocked down the door!”
“I’ll have to get a new front door,” Day says. “But the house is insured.”
Day’s daughter-in-law, Joanne, says her husband picked up Helen from the evacuation center about 3 am. They were able to return to her home a couple of hours later, says Joanne.
Joanne told KSL Newsradio that Helen has a great spirit and just wants to finish the book she was reading.