On the evening of July 2 last summer, a fire broke out just behind Utah’s state Capitol on Ensign Peak. In the dry grass, it spread across a quarter of an acre.
This came less than a year after the Sandhurst fire blackened more than 200 acres in the same region. The earlier fire prompted evacuations from homes, engaged more than 100 firefighters and took nearly a week to fully contain.
Since it was much easier to access, this most recent Ensign Peak fire was mitigated much more quickly. In 20 minutes, the Salt Lake City Fire Department had the fire under control, and in another 20, it was fully extinguished.
When Jake Eiting, the natural lands supervisor for the city’s Trails and Natural Lands Department, walked up to the scene afterward, “it was pretty drastic looking,” he told the Deseret News.
“The ground was completely charred, the fence was really damaged and harshly burned,” he said. It was something “out of the ordinary from what you normally see.”
Eiting’s team got to work cleaning up the fence posts, and removing nails and screws to make the area safe to the public. Ensign Peak had mainly been covered in invasive grasses, including cheatgrass and cereal grass, which burn easily and quickly.
The fire is an opportunity to reintroduce natural species
Fires are a natural part of most ecosystems, especially in the West.
“When a fire goes through, it leaves behind all that charred organic matter, which is exactly what the soil needs. So in a way, it’s a completely natural process, and it’s good for soil health,” he said.
On Ensign Peak, the Trails and Natural Lands Department wanted to “take advantage of the bare ground to reintroduce a number of different native plant seeds to the soil,” Eiting said. Over the years, the ground’s seed bank “has shifted from a native complement to a non-native complement.”
Non-native grass has “really changed the fire regime across the entire Western U.S.,” Eiting said. In the heat of Utah summers, invasive grasses are drier and more flammable.
So Eiting and his team tilled the area to reintroduce native seeds of wildflowers, grasses and shrubs to get them back on the landscape. This is more of a long-term project, since native seeds take longer to grow, he explained.
“Native plants that are adapted to ecosystems across our state are really smart in their timing. They’ll wait until conditions and resources are just right to germinate,” he said. These native seeds need cold weather and rain, “so we might not see a lot of growth from what we’ve seeded this year,” due to the warm, dry weather.
How is Utah preparing for fires this summer?
Utah expects and prepares for fires every year, the director of Salt Lake City’s Trails and Natural Lands Division, Tyler Fonarow, told the Deseret News.
“It’s not an alarmist thing, and it’s not a new worry — we’re always worried,“ he said. ”We’re always working with the fire department to think about emergency response strategies and wildfire strategies.“
The Salt Lake City Fire Department and Utah’s Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands are constantly training to be better prepared to respond to fires in the foothills and everywhere else, Fonarow said.
For example, at the top of the Avenues in Salt Lake City, there’s a massive water tarp that helicopters can use to pick up water and drop it on fires. The city also makes sure roads are clear of vegetation for truck access if needed. Meanwhile, firefighters are trained on which trails are accessible for emergency response and firefighting.
“We expect wildfires and that’s why we have a plan,” Fonarow said. “Sometimes we have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. ... I think the community would be surprised to know how much planning and preparation goes into keeping the community as safe as possible from these potential disasters.”
How should I prepare my home for fire season?
The Ensign Peak fire was relatively minuscule and a good example of the city rapidly extinguishing a safety hazard.
However, other fires like the Sandhurst Fire, which broke out in late July 2024, have been much more difficult to mitigate and restore.
“To the credit of the emergency response by the fire departments, city and state, it was incredibly well contained quickly,” Fonarow said, but the focus of the city and state remain on prevention.
Utahns can help prevent fires by clearing dead vegetation from their property, cleaning gutters, removing flammable materials and trimming trees. Other more intensive preventions include upgrading exteriors and roofs to noncombustible and fire-resistant materials.
If worst comes to worst, the American Red Cross recommends families having a three-day kit and a two-week kit with essential items like water, medications, important documents and clothing.