Update: Evacuation orders have been lifted in Fruit Heights as of Tuesday morning, but authorities say residents should still be on alert.
A wildfire in Davis County forced residents to evacuate their homes on Monday night.
High winds rapidly spread the Francis Fire, which had grown to more than 100 acres near Adams Canyon as of Monday night, fire officials said.
The Davis County Sheriff’s Office at about 5 p.m. ordered evacuations of homes in the neighborhoods near the fire; that evacuation order was lifted about 10 p.m.
The Adams Canyon trail system, which rises above Layton, also was off-limits, fire officials said. Search and rescue crews closed trailheads and kept watch in Adams Canyon and the nearby Bonneville Shoreline Trail and Francis Peak.
"They’re ... just trying to make sure people are getting off the mountain,” Liz Sollis, Davis County spokeswoman, said in a news conference.
Two heavy air tankers had dropped about 6,000 gallons of retardant onto the fire, said Kim Osborn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service.
“Things have been going a little bit better,” Osborn said. Crews hoped that a projected cold front would shift winds to the west around midnight and push the fire back into itself, where it has already burned through grass and shrubs on the mountain.
People living near the fire still should “be prepared” to leave their homes, Osborn said.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight,” she said.
