2024 busiest wildfire season for Utah in years, but costs down, officials say
Aug 20, 2024, 3:00 PM
A plane drops fire retardant as the Sandhurst Fire burns above Ensign Peak north of Salt Lake City on Saturday, July 20, 2024. (Isaac Hale/the Deseret News)
(Isaac Hale/the Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — 2024 was the busiest wildfire season Utah has seen in four years, state fire officials reported on Tuesday. Despite that, the state’s costs to fight this year’s fires are lower than average.
That’s according to Jamie Barnes, director of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, who shared that finding with the Utah Legislature’s Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday morning at the state Capitol.
Utah wildfire season 2024 in numbers
According to data Barnes presented to committee members, so far in 2024, Utah had:
- 961 total wildfires, 544 of which were human-caused.
- 50,170 acres burned, 4,342 of which were state-owned.
Barnes also noted that 93% of Utah’s fires this year were contained at 10 acres or less.
That could be a reason costs have remained low for fire suppression in 2024.
“Kudos to the whole team… we can’t do this alone,” Barnes said. “It’s been a great collaboration this year.”
Barnes told the subcommittee that, on average, Utah spends between $15 million and $20 million a year to put out wildfires.
At the time of publication, the state had only spent $7.2 million for the year. Barnes said they don’t expect to have spent more than $11.8 million by the end of fire season.
However, the numbers are preliminary and could change, Barnes emphasized.
Another possible reason why costs have remained low is that some of the largest fires this year didn’t burn a lot of state-owned land.
For example, the Silver King Fire burned over 18,000 acres in Piute County, according to Utah Fire Info.
However, Barnes said only 7.6% of those acres were state-owned. That means Utah will only pay a small portion of the suppression costs.
Barnes said they estimate the cost to put out that fire would be around $30 million, but Utah would only be responsible for just under $2.3 million.
A word of caution
Barnes said while she and other officials didn’t expect another widespread fire towards the end of the 2024 wildfire season, she warned there are still at least three months to go before the season ends.
“We’re still seeing fires daily,” Barnes said. “We also haven’t found that glass ball…to tell us what exactly we’re expecting.
Related:
- How this year compares to one of the worst fire seasons on record
- Smokey Bear celebrates 80 years of wildfire prevention
