(gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Utah Insight" is made possible by viewers like you, thank you.

- [RaeAnn] Tonight on "Utah Insight", a blazing start to Utah's wildfire season.

- Again, I just can't emphasize this enough guys, it's worse than you think it is out there right now.

- [Raeann] A historic drought and hot temperatures could lead to a record breaking fire season.

What fire restrictions have been put in place?

- It's human caused, it shouldn't have happened.

- Plus hundreds of fires this year are human caused.

The push to hold more accountable.

(bright ambient music) Welcome to "Utah Insight", I'm RaeAnn Christensen.

If predictions hold true, 2021 could be the worst wildfire season we have ever seen, and it's already off to a bad start.

Here's a map of the current fire danger risk.

You can see much of the state is in extreme or very high risk.

So far this season, there have already been hundreds of wildfires.

More than 500 total, nearly 400 of those, human caused.

120 natural, and 10 undetermined.

Now joining us to talk about the wildfire season, Kaitlyn Webb, the public information officer and prevention coordinator, with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State lands.

And joining us by Skype, Christopher Secakuku, the Forest Supervisor and Administrator at the Uintah and Ouray Agency, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Dr. Derek Mallia, research assistant professor at the University of Utah's, Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

Thank you so much for joining us.

So Kaitlyn, I wanna start with you, and I know there's some sort of a forecast for wildfire season, and they're saying this could be the worst we've ever seen.

Can you tell us what we should expect for the rest of the year?

- We can definitely expect continued high fire danger for the rest of the year.

We have such dry fuels across the entire state right now we've been seeing very active fire behavior.

In early June, we were seeing fire behavior that we often see towards the end of August, to give you an idea of how active it's been.

So we're expecting that high fire danger to continue, the drought to persist, and we're really needing the public to be very cautious this year, exercise fire sense every single day to prevent as many human caused fires as we can.

- And Christopher you've already been busy this year, battling the Horsecorn Fire, you guys have started off your year pretty busy.

Can you tell us what it's like right now?

- Yeah, well, like Kaitlyn said, the fuels out there are extremely dry and the fire behavior that we're seeing now, that we have seen a few weeks ago, that's something that we typically see in late August, 1st September, a couple of weeks ago in June 20th, we had a fire start-up in the Southern extension of the reservation, the Horsecorn Fire.

And it very quickly went to 662 acres and, it was because of the wind and extremely dry sage and grass.

It was just something that we don't see for the June's fire behavior, we don't typically see that until later on in the season.

- Dr. Mallia what is so different about our climate?

Is it different this year?

Is this something year to year?

What is causing our fire seasons to be so bad?

- Yeah, so what we're seeing over time is we're seeing the effects of climate change and what's going on is we're gonna be seeing more of these drought like conditions in the future.

In addition to the fact that we're also gonna be seeing warmer temperatures, and what this will do is this will limit the amount of snow that we have in the mountains, which are essentially the water towers of the West.

And so essentially this will limit the availability of water for these kind of elevated forests and therefore the forest will dry out a lot sooner, so that's why we're probably seeing these August like conditions in June and July.

- Do you think it's just gonna get worse, year after year after year?

- I mean, there'll be some variability every year, but the trend is expected to continue through the end of the 21st century, where we'll see increased droughts and therefore probably more wildfires.

- And Kaitlyn, do you think that this is gonna be the worst wildfire we've seen?

- I think there's potential for it.

The conditions are there.

We have the dry conditions, we've had a lot of red flag days.

The potential is there for us to have a historic fire season.

We can have an influence on that though.

All of us here in Utah, whether you're a resident or visiting, can influence how busy our season is by reducing those human cause starts.

The big bulk of our fires this year have been human caused, so it can be historic, but we also have the opportunity to influence how busy it is.

- All right, so we wanted to ask you on social media, are those responsible held accountable when they start fires in Utah?

Haley Titus Winslow says, "My question to everyone in Utah: Is setting off fireworks, having a bonfire, roasting marshmallows, et cetera, worth the risk financially and human loss?

If you are putting your right to using fire above the safety of your neighbors, please reconsider this, please reconsider your priorities.

A small sacrifice may be the difference of life and death.

If people knowingly use fire during the time of drought and end up causing a fire, they should absolutely be held responsible."

We did have a record breaking year for human caused fires last year, and it looks like we're on track already, about 90%.

Some people said last year, it was the COVID-19 pandemic, people being outdoors.

Kaitlyn, what do you think is contributing this year?

- Well, conditions are a huge factor.

Everything is so dry, so it's much easier for a fire to start, and when it does, we're seeing it move much quicker and grow much larger than we normally would for this time of year.

But as far as the other factors influencing it, it's also people and whether or not they're being responsible.

Are they fully extinguishing campfires?

Are they keeping their vehicles maintained before they hit the road?

They're checking their trailer chains.

Those little things that go a long ways in preventing those unnecessary fires.

So the conditions are there and also irresponsibility this year as well.

- Chris, these are fires that actually don't need to happen.

And people think they're being careful, it's not gonna happen to them.

How, how do we do better?

- One thing is we base our fire predictions off of, the science of the conditions at hand and it's been said that the fuel conditions are extremely dry, fuel moistures are not there, we don't have the water from the snow that we've had in the past.

The weather greatly influences that.

We all know that we can't do anything about mother nature.

When those thunderstorms come in and the lightning starts popping, we can't do much about that, but the human factor, that's where we can make the big difference.

And I think there's a misconception that when we say a fire is human caused, it's not necessarily that somebody went out and started that fire, but it's like, Kaitlyn said, it's the, it could be a dragging a chain, a flat tire, it could be something that may just be some negligence involved where it was a human that led to the cause of that fire.

So just being educated, following the fire restrictions, having that fire sense, just being aware of your surroundings, whenever you're doing any outdoor activities, and education is all we have and that's the biggest tool that we can utilize to help people understand just how dry it is.

- And what restrictions do you have in place right now Kaitlyn?

What do people need to watch out for?

- There are a ton of restrictions in place across the state, as far as campfires, there's some areas that only allow them in developed recreational locations with a fire ring, and that stage one, we also have some areas like the Southeast part of Utah that have stage two, which means a complete ban on campfires.

So the restrictions vary a ton across the state.

Everybody can go to Utahfireinfo.gov and get a comprehensive list and look at a map to see the different restrictions that we have and that is inter agency, so everybody's restrictions are listed there as well.

- And fireworks' illegal right now.

- Yes, now that we've moved past the fifth, we are back into the time of year where fireworks are illegal across the entire state.

It doesn't matter where you are, and that holds true until July 22nd, when we move back into that next holiday weekend.

Dr. Mallia, how important is it for residents to be mindful?

You talked about the changing climate, what goes along with that, droughts, wildfires, what do they need to do?

What do residents need to do?

- Yeah, I think they just, they need to be careful, right?

Just be mindful of some of the activities that they're doing and what my colleagues kind of have mentioned before, just, yeah, keeping your cars repaired, just putting out your campfires, not doing fireworks outside of 4th of July.

Those are the things that residents need to be mindful of.

- Okay, Governor Cox at his last news conference here on PBS Utah said we had more than 60 fires in the state last year, caused by fireworks.

He wants people to know those can turn into damaging fires, costing millions of dollars.

- Please, this is not the year.

Even if you think you're being extremely safe, it's so easy.

One spark, everything is so dry, it's drier than you think.

You also need to know that just because you can do fireworks, if you start a fire, you will be held liable for that fire.

You will be responsible for paying to have that fire put out and any damages that occur.

So again, just be extremely careful.

- And I know many of us were on pins and needles this last weekend.

Kaitlyn better or worse this year?

- Better this year.

I was really concerned going into the weekend, just given the conditions, but the public did a great job in terms of following state and city and town restrictions.

And we of course had a few firework related fires across the state, but nowhere near what we were expecting and not what we've seen in the past as well, no significant wildfires caused by fireworks this weekend.

- Okay, and Chris, how are people with fireworks in your area, how are they doing?

What was your weekend like?

- I think we was like everybody else.

We was kind of holding our breath, hoping that nothing would happen and luckily that's kind of the way it was.

We didn't have any firework related fires that I'm aware of.

We had folks out patrolling all night, even in the local area out here in Uintah basin and the firework activity or the fireworks starting fires was at a minimum.

I think there might've been a couple of small grass fires, but for the most part, people were listening and I think that it is because of the conditions and how extremely dry they are, folks are actually paying attention and it was really helpful.

So we was really pleased with not having the fire start from fireworks this weekend.

- There's been a push to hold people starting fires accountable.

Dr. Mallia, why do you think it's important for people to be responsible and be held accountable if they do start fires?

- Yeah, I mean, it's just important, just from the context of we all live in Utah and we don't want our homes burning down, right?

And so it's just, it's really important for everyone to be mindful of what they're doing, but also, they don't wanna be burning down other people's homes and also just, beautiful, forested areas and so on.

So I think just being conscious of other people, I think is why you would wanna be careful.

- Kaitlyn, are you holding people accountable?

Is the state actually pressing charges against those that start fires?

- Absolutely, yeah.

Whenever we're able to, if we find someone responsible for a fire, we will hold them accountable.

And what that looks like varies on each and every different fire, circumstances of how and where it started, what was impacted, but yes, if we conducted an investigation and we find somebody is responsible for starting it, we do hold them responsible, and there is the possibility that people will be responsible for suppression costs on some fires, land management agencies do push for that on some incidents.

- That can be very expensive too.

- Very spendy, yeah.

- Chris, are you holding people accountable in your area?

- Yes, pretty much the same, what Kaitlyn said.

We're responsible primarily for the Uintah oriented reservation.

So we have a couple of different laws that pertains to, the Ute tribe's law and order code, destruction of the private property of tribal lands is one avenue that could be followed and the other one is the, some of the federal regulations as they pertain to properties on the reservation.

So again, it just depends on what the investigation says, was this intentional, was it an accident?

But yes, the Ute tribe will seek compensation for the cost of the fire and the damage to the resources if need be.

- Okay, thank you.

Utah is in dire need of more wild land firefighters to help protect homes and Utah's natural habitat.

"Utah Insight's" Liz Adeola spoke to a former wild land firefighter about her path to the job and how it changed her life forever.

- [Kylie] Last season, a hundred degree weather was like prime fire weather.

- It was definitely one of the worst to think it was maybe a record breaking season.

- [Liz] Kylie Millward still feels the stress, still feels the weight of her third and final season, fighting wildfires in Utah.

- [Liz] What was it about remembering that time, that's kind of hit you?

- I mean, it was scary, there is some scary times, but I've worked with the crew that they varied in experiences and so there was a lot of trust with like their decision-making and they trusted me as well.

Because I was based in Salt Lake, we were responding to essentially everything on the front and that's the hottest part.

Sometimes we go to the Salt Flats or the desert and just bake.

- [Liz] Contending with intense heat both internally and externally, during Utah's record-breaking, wildfire season.

- [Kylie] We wouldn't just run out there, we would establish the escape route, the safety zone, and then any other information that we need to discuss.

Last season was pretty exhausting, people get hurt, animals get hurt, natural habitats can be destroyed.

I was always thinking about like, how am I gonna get back?

- [Liz] At times, Kylie would turn to her sketchbook, to help keep calm while taking breaks, during some of her toughest runs.

- [Kylie] Wild land firefighting was not even on my radar growing up.

- [Liz] Her dream was to become an illustrator.

- [Kylie] When I met my husband, Noah, he was talking about how he was a firefighter for a few years and like worked in the forest, and I was like, what even is that?

I didn't even know that was a career.

I actually said aloud, I could never do that.

And he was like, "Yeah, you could."

- [Liz] Years passed and she couldn't drop the thought of maybe one day becoming a wild land firefighter.

She moved to Utah and that nudged her even closer to the idea.

- [Kylie] I never lived in any areas that were as cool as Utah.

I lived in a lot of places in the Midwest where there wasn't a lot of hiking or really a lot of anything.

But yeah, moving here has really kind of made me an outdoorsy person.

- [Liz] One who could no longer ignore the glaring problems caused when drought and human error mix.

Problems that result in this.

- [Kylie] Our forests are pretty heavily fuel loaded right now, so they're just, they're ready to rip.

- [Liz] Kylie reached out to a crew that just so happened to be led by a man who was passionate about getting more women in firefighting.

- There's no question as to whether or not he should hire women, which I thought was really cool.

- [Liz] She was the only woman on the crew for her first two seasons, but worked alongside women who were part of other fire crews.

- [Kylie] I was thinking like, could I do that?

So maybe it was like, I was trying to prove something to myself like, yeah, of course you can.

I think it has helped me to realize my limits and also has kind of like pushed me beyond those limits in a way, and so I'm more comfortable jumping into something, be it an art project or the work that I do with Alpine Forestry and just knowing that I can accomplish it.

Putting in the hard work.

- So we're seeing firefighters shortages, recruiting difficulties, probably the worst year for this to happen.

Kaitlyn, how important is it for women to know that they can be involved in firefighting?

- It's incredibly important.

There are a lot of women out there that would be great assets to our fire crews, our engines, and all of our different resources available.

So it's really important that women know that they should apply and they have what it takes to come out and fight fire.

- Chris, a good number of people are temporary or volunteer firefighters.

What's the difficulty for you recruiting people right now?

- I think one of the difficulties is probably just getting folks interested in that line of work.

It seems that people are often, they associate firefighters with maybe a city, municipality, volunteer fire department, but the federal agencies do hire firefighters every season.

They could be seasonal, some of them are full time, so I think just the interest of getting people in this line of work, it's tough work, long hours, you're away from home, a lot of traveling, but one thing we have seen is, when we do get people recruited and in those positions, they have a passion for it, they commit to it, they may end up doing that for a few seasons.

But we here personally at the agency, we have had a shortage this year, we did a recruitment, we got some response back, we're in the process of getting some folks hired right now, but one thing is just making, making people aware of what the job is and how fun it can be.

If it's something that you're interested in, if you liked the outdoors, if you like mountains, being able to contribute to save that landscape is very fulfilling, so, we do what we can to get folks interested and then bring them on board.

- Dr. Mallia, a recommendation would be better management of public lands may be more preventative burning in off seasons, how do you feel about this?

- Yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely one piece of the puzzle, I was kind of talking about climate change before, but there's also the management of forests, so I think both pieces are, they're important, the climate change that's gonna take longer to solve, that's going to be kind of a global effort that's going to take many years to kind of solve and we could start doing that now.

But the thing that we can do right now is better manage our forests and so that's what we could do right now to get kind of more immediate results.

- And Chris, tribal lands are often near public and private lands.

How do you manage in your area?

- So the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we have a trust responsibility to manage the tribal forest for the Ute Indian tribe on Uintah oriented reservation.

So we are a federal land management agency, under the Department of Interior, and what we do is, we have forest management plan, we follow NEPA, we have the appropriate plans in place to do the activity that the Ute tribe wishes us to do.

All decisions for the tribal forest are made by the tribal council and right now they have opted for us to actively manage the forest.

So we do what we can with projects, whether that be getting projects, fuels reduction projects, we do sell firewood, posts and poles, and that we're actually getting ready to do some timber harvesting and sell that, so we are actively managing the forest, but, again, that's something that needs to be done across the whole landscape because, forests don't stop on a boundary line or a fence, so actively managing the forest is definitely key to helping reduce and control the severity of wildfires.

- Kaitlyn, you are doing prevention during the off season.

I'm sure we all see the smoke, so can you talk about the operations as the state?

- Yeah, we do a ton here at the state and what we manage as far as lands is anything that is state owned and then unincorporated private.

So outside of the cities and towns and not federal.

So we do a ton, fuels reduction projects, whether that's mechanical, burning piles, we do prescribed burns as well, so reducing fuels where they're too thick and there's that danger of catastrophic wildfire.

We work on putting in buffers or fire lines that we're going to use to protect communities in the future, so reducing fuels in front of communities, in case they're impacted by fire.

And another element that we engage in really heavily is with communities and their own defensible space and home hardening as well.

So another big element of what we work on year round.

- And turning to another social media comment.

Ed O'Neil says, "They absolutely should pay for what they caused.

This is not something that taxpayers should continuously keep footing the bill for."

And I think we're at about 90% human caused this year and residents obviously getting frustrated.

What would you say to them, Kaitlyn, as far as the residents go this year?

- I would say, I agree.

I think that people should be held responsible.

It's difficult, a lot of fires that we come to, there is no one around when we get there and sometimes it's difficult to have an investigation lead to an actual individual that can be held responsible, but we do what we can in those cases to investigate as thoroughly as we can hold people accountable where we can, and I think it's all of our responsibility to be not only educated ourselves, but educating our neighbors and our friends and community members, to help see what we wanna see here in the state in terms of safe fire sense and prevention practices.

- And Chris, what are some of the resources for residents in your area as far as creating defensible space or anything that they can go to for resources?

- We actually promote and refer people to the fire sense stuff, the stuff that Kaitlyn puts out, they do a great job with putting out publications, putting out some instructions, videos on how to be safe around the community, so we don't have any specific stuff that just pertains strictly to tribal lands, because of the stuff that's already out there is really good.

So we refer people to that quite a bit.

- Okay, and I want to get some final thoughts before we close this show.

Dr. Mallia, fire season this year, what would you say to residents?

- Yeah, just be careful.

I mean, there's, we can limit the number of wildfires, even though it's exceptionally dry.

So people should and residents should be careful and that will at least limit the number of fires in Utah.

And in addition to that, this also plays into air quality too, right?

So wild fires produce a lot of smoke, so there's also obviously the threat of wild fires burning down homes, but also just be mindful of the fact that when there is a wildfire, it's also gonna make the air quality worse as well.

So just kind of be mindful of that as well.

- Kaitlyn, any final thoughts?

- I would just say this isn't the year to take risks.

I liked what Chris said earlier.

We don't have any control over mother nature.

We know the conditions are there, there is high potential for fire.

So we need the public to do everything that they can to practice fire sense, reduce those human caused fires for this year.

- Chris, any final thoughts?

- Just please be careful.

I've been doing this for 30 years and this is definitely the driest and highest fire danger that I've ever seen.

It's super dry out there and it doesn't take much to start a fire, so just be aware of your surroundings and please be careful with any fire in the outdoors.

- Thank you so much for being here.

Let's just hope that fire season doesn't get worse and we can stay on track to have good fire season as far as the fireworks go, everyone was responsible.

So I appreciate you guys being here.

Next week on "Utah Insight," the federal government owns nearly two thirds of all the land in Utah.

The way the land gets managed often impacts rural areas.

We bring together leaders from around the state, to talk about the intricate economics of Utah's public lands.

And we wanna hear from you.

Share your thoughts, using the methods on your screen.

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Thank you so much for watching "Utah Insight."

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