Southern Utah could be in for a longer than normal fire season. The region endured a very dry winter and little snowpack and dry soil is a dangerous mix.
According to the most recent state data, Utah’s three southernmost watersheds barely hit 40-percent of average snowpack over the winter.
“The soils are already in the bottom tenth percentile of our observations in both the Escalante-Paria region and also southwestern Utah region,” said Jordan Clayton with the Utah Snow Survey.
It’s been almost the complete opposite in northern Utah, where snowpack levels were between 92% and 102% of average. The disparity also means the forecast for wildfire season changes significantly depending on where you are.
According to the April 1 wildfire outlook by the National Interagency Fire Center, the early part of wildfire season for most of the Great Basin region, which includes northern Utah, is “expected to be normal.”
That changes when you look at the southern portion of the state. Unless the region receives rainfall this spring that is well above normal levels, the report says “fuels will dry out quickly in May and June.”
“The main areas of concern heading into June will be southern areas of Nevada, Utah, and the Arizona Strip in the mid to higher elevations,” the report states. “These areas have well below normal snowpack, and precipitation has been below normal with increasing drought.”
Clayton points out there are a lot of different factors that can influence the severity of fire season. Weather patterns, humidity and the amount of fuel on the ground that can burn are the most obvious, but soil moisture also plays a key role.
“We're definitely dealing with a complication of both factors being true: very, very poor snow pack on top of very, very dry soil,” he said. “So fire risk, just from a snow perspective and a soil moisture perspective, would be elevated in those Southern Utah regions.”
In general, Clayton said the longer soil can stay wet from melting snow into the summer — like the snowier regions of Utah will see this spring — the shorter fire season can be.
“If we have a lot more water that gets into the ground later, as is the case in our biggest snowpack years, then the soils are wetter longer into the spring, and it creates more soil moisture, less dryness and therefore a shorter season that fires would be likely to happen.”
The April report from the National Interagency Fire Center lists Southern Utah as an “area of concern” once the warmer summer months arrive.
Utah’s wildfire season typically runs from July to October.
