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SALT LAKE CITY — While monsoonal storms have helped soil moisture levels in recent weeks, they haven't stopped the spread of wildfires in Utah.
As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, there had been 971 fire starts this year, including nearly 100 new starts over the past week, according to state and federal data. The vast majority of the new starts are listed with an undetermined cause or were sparked by lightning from monsoonal storms.
"It's still very busy. We're still seeing fires daily," said Jamie Barnes, director of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, as she provided a mid-fire season update to state lawmakers on Tuesday.
Thankfully, only about 7% of all fire starts this season have surpassed 10 acres in size because of fast responses from local, state and federal firefighters. It's a key reason that the average wildfire has been contained to a little more than 51.6 acres to date.
But each new start is costly.
How costly?
State land managers are still calculating exact costs, but they believe the first 961 fires have cost about $28.5 million to suppress. Utah is expected to be on the hook to pay about $7.2 million of that estimated cost based on where fires have burned. Fire impression costs about $29,600 per start on average.
Barnes explains it could take six to 12 months to calculate the exact total after any given fire season to know the real cost. However, the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands projects that this year's total cost may reach $37.5 million; about $11.8 million of that would come from the state.
"That is just our best estimate," Barnes told members of the Utah Legislature's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee, adding that some financial data is yet to come to adjust any projections. "Some of our aviation costs are in that amount, but not all of them."
Should the projection come to fruition, it would be about double the cost of last year's milder fire season. The division previously estimated that total 2023 fire suppression costs from federal, state and local entities combined reached $18.2 million.
Barnes said the cost to the state would be lower than average, continuing a trend in recent years. It's also money well spent because the quick response to keep 93% of fires under 10 acres prevents costs from skyrocketing.
The costliest fires
Larger and more complex fires are often costlier. The Silver King Fire, a lightning-caused fire that burned 18,222 acres in Piute County — and remains the state's largest fire this year — may end up costing $30 million altogether. Nearly $2.3 million of that projection would be covered by the state.
Utah will have to pay the full cost of some fires, including the Graff Point Fire in Iron County and the Sandhurst Fire in Salt Lake County, which burned entirely on local and state land.
The Graff Point Fire only scorched about 543 acres south of Cedar City, but its cost may end up being about $7.5 million. The Sandhurst Fire that burned about 200 acres near Ensign Peak last month may end up costing close to $1 million.
Fire trends
Some of the cost increase has to do with a spike in human-caused fires. There have been at least 545 confirmed human-caused fires this year as compared to 339 throughout all of 2023 and 489 in 2022.
State lawmakers commended Utah land managers and firefighters for efforts to reduce human-caused fires in recent years, including the Utah Fire Sense campaign. But the uptick, they say, shows that more work needs to be done to get the message out.
"The things that we can prevent are human-caused fires," said Sen. Scott Sandall, R-Tremonton, and the subcommittee's chairman. "A lightning strike, we can't stop in a dry situation ... but we can stop a dragging chain. We can stop somebody from throwing something out of the window. We can stop all those kinds of things."
Barnes said she agrees, which is why she hopes that Fire Sense continues to receive funding.
The percentage of human-caused wildfires has gone down, though. On July 31, about 70% of all wildfires were started by human causes after that figure reached close to 80% at points this summer. The percentage is now about 57% with more lightning-caused fires igniting in August.
Outlook for the rest of 2024?
This month's storms have started new fires, but they may also help to reduce future risk. Barnes said rains from the recent storms have helped reduce energy release component levels in the state, a figure firefighters use to determine fire potential.
More rain is expected at times over at least the next two weeks, which may continue to reduce fire risk.
However, a lot can change with dry conditions still in place. Fire risks exist year-round now and are not confined to just the summer and early fall months, so state land managers say it's too difficult to know if and when Utah is completely out of fire danger.
"We're hoping we're not going to see a lot of big fires," Barnes said. "We're not expecting that, but we also haven't found that glass ball we're looking for to tell us what exactly we're expecting."
