Utah’s abundant rain and snow over the past two years did wonders for the state’s drought and reservoir levels. It also drove the growth of more grasses and shrubs.
As temperatures soar across Utah, those plants are quickly becoming potential kindling.
“Getting up to that 100-degree mark will dry that fuel out pretty quickly,” Washington County Director of Emergency Management Jason Whipple said.
“That’ll definitely increase our risk.”
Wildfire fuels are approaching critical levels across southwest and southeast Utah, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Their latest outlook predicts above-normal potential for significant fires in parts of southwest Utah in June and July. It forecasts similar conditions for northwest Utah in July and August.
Nick Howell, a fire management specialist with the Bureau of Land Management in Cedar City, said southwest Utah is already averaging two to three fires per day. June is typically the region’s most active month for human-caused fires.
“When we have this much grass on the landscape, it really depends on when and if those ignitions take place and what the weather conditions are,” Howell said. “The fuel for a wildfire is definitely there this year. So … I think we're going to see a busy season.”
His entire Bureau of Land Management District from central Utah to the Arizona border is a fire concern right now, he said, but conditions are especially risky in the lower elevations of Washington and Kane counties.
The heat isn’t expected to let up anytime soon, either.
Seasonal forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict most of Utah will experience higher-than-normal temperatures through June, July, August and September — with likely below-average rainfall.
In 2023, intermittent rains kept Utah’s vegetation just wet enough to avoid the worst conditions. For example, St. George broke the record for its wettest water year last fall. It received around 16 inches of precipitation between October 2022 and September 2023 — roughly twice its historic average.
Timely summer monsoons could come to the rescue again this year, but Howell doesn’t anticipate that Utah will be that lucky.
“Last year, we had a very small window of high fire danger compared to what we're expecting to happen this year,” he said. “The top concern is now that we're into the month of June and we've had a little bit of a drying trend, we actually do have conditions this year for large fire potential.”
2023 was also Utah’s quietest wildfire season in at least two decades. That was good news at the time, but it left more plant matter unburnt for this season.
There’s already more grass in southwest Utah this year than at the same time last year, Howell said. His team is seeing vehicle-related fires start just about every day, and they expect that to increase as summer recreation ramps up.
Another reason fires tend to increase in the summer is fireworks. Whipple said his team in Washington County is working to put up more safety signage at places where there have been firework-caused blazes in the past, such as the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve north of St. George.
Before lighting a fuse, he said, residents should check their city’s map that shows where fireworks are illegal because those grassy, scrubby areas are off-limits for a reason.
“It doesn't take a lot of common sense to look at that [landscape] and say, ‘I can start this hill on fire pretty easily with a bottle rocket or with a firework [or] a sparkler that lands in the bushes,’” Whipple said. “If we can just get people to do that, that will cut down a lot on fires.”
