Utah’s record snowpack has been a beacon of hope after the state’s yearslong drought. It has helped the Great Salt Lake’s water level rise. The wet winter, one might think, should also help protect against wildfires, but Gov. Spencer Cox and experts warned that may not be the case during a press conference on Monday.
At the presentation forecasting Utah’s wildfire season, Cox said despite all the snowpack, rainstorms and water, May has been drier than average.
“All of this beautiful greenery that you see — it will be a fire danger before it’s not green,” he said. “It might look like it’s a great time to be out — you don’t have to worry about your fires — but that is certainly not the case.”
Utah’s snowy winter shattered records this year. Salt Lake City received 87 inches of snow this winter, or 30 inches of water.
According to Snoflo, Utah’s snowpack is currently 32% above normal, while the deepest snowpack was last reported as 283% above normal at Bug Lake.
But the wet winter isn’t a reason for people to act complacent when it comes to preventing wildfires.
Basil Newmerzhycky, lead meteorologist at Great Basin Predictive Services, said excess precipitation is a mixed bag.
“The bad part is … between the grass, the weeds and the brush, there is a lot of it,” he said. “Our big concern is … when we have wet winters, we sometimes can get very busy fire seasons, especially during the latter half of the fire season.”
Newmerzhycky said for a lot of areas, the only month to expect below normal fire conditions is June. The grasses are drying out, but it could take several weeks or up to a month and a half for the snow to melt, he said.
“It buys us a little time, but it should not lead to complacency because that excess fire fuel in the lower and middle elevations is what we’re especially worried about this season,” he said.
Joel Ferry, the executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, said the 2020 wildfire season was one of the most devastating, expensive and largest in Utah’s history. Roughly 100,000 acres of land were charred and 1,100 wildfires were caused by humans.
More than half of wildfires are human-caused, Ferry said.
“This year, we’ve had over 85 wildfires, 53 of them have been human-caused, so it still is a concern. We have work to do,” he said.
According to Newmerzhycky, the current weather pattern of cloudy and cooler days has helped the snowpack not melt too fast. But this weather pattern is caused by the rapid development of El Niño.
“That’s where a lot of this upper level cloud moisture comes from. It’s keeping a cool temp shield across the area that tends to delay or sometimes really suppress the monsoon season that we typically get from early July through August, into early September that usually takes the edge off the fire season,” he said.
Newmerzhycky said as July and August roll around, the clouds will be thinner and temperatures will rise to the 90s. The green grasses and brushes will rapidly cure out.
“What is likely to happen is we probably will not see the moistening effects of the monsoon, at least like it normally has been in the last several years,” he said.
Newmerzhycky summed up his concerns and said Utah will see a cooler and less active start to the fire season in June and early July but see increased fire activity in the latter part of July through August.
“I can see us having multiple days or maybe weeks of poor air quality and smoke as we go through the summer months from fires that are more in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada,” he added.
Cox said since starting the Fire Sense program in 2020, Utah has seen a 60% reduction in human-caused wildfires.
“It’s crucial, absolutely critical this year, that we remain vigilant and exercise good fire sense,” he said.
Cox urged Utahns to have good fire sense by making sure they have water, a shovel and bucket to put out their campfire, watching where they park and checking their fires for heat — even if they think it’s been completely put out.
“Most fires start small in fine fuels like dried grass, and when these fuels dry out in the heat of summer, they become a fire hazard,” Cox said. “Even a small fire can quickly burn out of control and turn into a dangerous wildfire with strong winds.”
Cox said he thinks there is enough funding for wildfire purposes, despite having moved some funding around to make up for flooding damages.
“Nobody knows exactly what it will be like in July and August but right now we feel very good about where we are,” he said.