As drought continues to cripple water resources and demand land management change, there is increasing attention on the risk inherently built into some of the most visited areas in Utah.
Big and Little Cottonwood and Millcreek canyons in Salt Lake County are big draws, attracting roughly 3.2 million visitors per year in an area spanning roughly 80,000 acres.
By comparison, Arches National Park — one of Utah’s beloved national parks — receives about 1.8 million visitors per year.
Amid so much usage for those canyons, wildfire risks persist. But there is momentum to figure out ways to mitigate those risks.
Multiple entities met Thursday in a closed-door session to address fire risks and in hopes of bringing about the necessary ideas and tools for proactive wildfire risk mitigation, like clearing trees and instituting a more aggressive and proactive approaches.
The meeting included the Forest Service, the state Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, private property owners, as well as Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City officials in an effort to bring about change.
But there is tension
An attorney involved in the matter of bringing about progress, Robert Tee Spjute, had this to say: “We will soon request a Wildfire Mitigation Plan for this property from Utah’s Forestry, Fire, and State Lands for work this fall.”
According to the Wildfire Risk Map, these properties are also located in high- and very high-risk areas for wildfires, Spjute said.
This property is a high priority for authorities due to its huge recreational use by hikers, campers, birdwatchers, and stargazers.
“The surveys for the (canyon) properties are on record with the Salt Lake County Surveyor’s Office, if you need their help,” Spjute said.
The response has been mixed
“The Forest Mitigation Management Guide is only an opinion of possible guidelines, one of which provides for tree thinning that includes thinning of conifer stands and removal of conifer trees with a diameter at breast height of less than 12 inches, which is in conflict with restrictions on removal of significant trees,” said a spokesman for Salt Lake County.
So what would happen to Utah’s paradise if there were a major wildfire? Utah is hoping that taking proactive measures now will ensure that damages won’t be as severe as has been the case in recent years in California wildfires.
Authorities want to prevent outcomes like the Tubbs Fire in northern California in 2017, which saw 5,636 buildings lost, or the Camp Fire, also in northern California, which was even more disastrous. The Camp Fire was the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history.
That fire lasted 17 days; 85 people were killed, and the town of Paradise lost 18,804 structures — 85 percent of its buildings. There were 754 structures the fire did not totally destroy, and even in buildings that did not burn, but it was often necessary to remediate interior smoke exposure.
The disaster’s scale and scope obligated the National Institute of Standards and Technology to parcel out its forensic accounting across fifteen “focus regions,” spanning from the fire’s origin point, barely six miles from downtown Paradise, to the outskirts of the university town of Chico, over a dozen miles from the ignition site. The burn zone constituted 153,336 acres (nearly 240 square miles). By comparison, the city of San Francisco comprises 30,016 acres.
