The fire danger sign, which is posted at the entrance to the Town of Castle Valley, is back up to “extreme” again this week as the weather continues to be hot and dry. If there are windy days like there were this week, then you can add a red flag or fire weather warning to the mix.
The fire danger at this time of the year is even more alarming than last year. You may remember that last fall the open burn window was postponed by the state fire agencies until last Nov. 1, but because the fire danger in Castle Valley was still posted at “high,” there was no open burning allowed in the town at all. If nothing happens weather-wise this year, we are on track to repeat the same scenario as last year.
Even though Utah as a whole hasn’t really dealt with serious catastrophic fires, there have been many smaller human-caused fires all over the state. As of July 31, there were 650 fires in Utah, 82 percent of which were human caused at a cost of around $20 million. Even those smaller fires can get really expensive, like up into the millions of dollars sometimes.
In many cases it is the local volunteer fire department that is first on the scene to keep a fire from exploding out of control. The Castle Valley Fire Department has responded to dozens of lightning or illegal fires on state or federal lands over the years and probably some of those could have gone on to become a major catastrophe if they were not dealt with quickly.
So, who pays for that? An individual who starts a fire on their personal property that gets out of control can legally be held responsible for the loss of homes and the total cost of the fire suppression. As an example, the man who started the Brian Head Fire in June of 2017 is charged with reckless burning when he was burning brush on his personal property without a permit.
That fire quickly raged out of control and eventually burned 70,000 acres and caused evacuations and destroyed many homes. Last I heard, there was enough evidence for a trial but no date was set for the hearing, Whatever the outcome, it won’t be a pleasant experience for that homeowner.
A fire that starts in the Castle Valley Fire District and spreads to state and federal lands could involve numerous fire agencies with ground crews and aircraft and the cost could mount quickly. Depending on where a fire started, the fire department could be held responsible for the cost of the fire suppression except for a program that the Castle Valley Fire Department participates in, which is the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP).
According to their mission statement, “the CWPP identifies and prioritizes areas for hazardous fuel reduction treatments and recommends the types and methods of treatment on federal and state land that will protect one or more at-risk communities and essential infrastructure and recommends measures to reduce structural ignitability throughout the at-risk community.” Participation in this program means the state will pick up the tab for fire suppression.
The Castle Valley Fire District, as well as all local governments, are assessed a yearly fee based on various factors and statistics from the previous five years. In the case of the local fire department, the fee is paid by in-kind hours, which cover the three basic categories of wildfire prevention, wildfire mitigation and wildfire preparedness, which is “participation commitment actions for local governments.” The fire department is constantly satisfying those in-kind hours through campaigns at the Fourth of July pancake breakfast or gourd festival displays, the chipper days, improving fire apparatus, increasing firefighter access to water systems, hours training for wildland fire suppression, and the cost and hours of inspecting resident defensible space work.
Fire department members are scheduled for additional defensible space training later this month and will be available to inspect homes for defensible space. There is a lot of activity that goes on in the Castle Valley Fire Department that the average citizen doesn’t see.
Most of us were warned of a planned power outage last Sunday evening. A recorded telephone message from Rocky Mountain Power stated that the power would go off at 6:30 p.m. and be off for up to two hours and would affect 712 customers, which is all of the Castle Valley area. Dave Eskelsen of Rocky Mountain Power said a transmission structure was replaced on the Rattlesnake #22 line in Kane Creek.
“Generally,” Eskelsen said, “there is no good time for a disruption but it is less disruptive on a weekend.” The power was only off for about 15 minutes before the lights came back on for the evening.
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August 14, 2020 at 04:09AM
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Wildfire suppression can be expensive | The Times-Independent - The Times-Independent
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