Utah expected to spend almost $12 million fighting wildfires this year

Crews battle the 41-acre Warm Springs Fire in Box Elder County, one of nearly 1,000 wildfires in Utah this year, on Aug. 8, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Utah Fire Info)

So far, at least $28 million has been spent fighting almost 1,000 wildfires in Utah this year, with about $7.2 million shouldered by the state.

That’s according to Jamie Barnes, director of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, who said with roughly three months left in the fire season, that number will continue to rise.

Barnes spoke earlier this week during a Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environmental Quality Appropriations Subcommittee meeting, where lawmakers considered various funding requests and heard updates on recently appropriated money.

The report is still preliminary. Barnes cautioned it can take about six months to a year to get a full accounting of how much the state spends on suppression, telling lawmakers “it’s really hard to tell you where we’re at with costs right now.”

But one thing is certain — 2024 will be far costlier than the last two years, which by most metrics had relatively mild fire activity.

When Barnes presented on Tuesday, there had been 961 wildfires around the state. By Thursday, that number was at 993.

Most of those fires are small, with 93% of them caught before they spread beyond 10 acres. But each fire diverts resources, often at the taxpayer’s expense.

“It’s still very busy. We’re still seeing fires daily. But we’re not expecting any large fires as we close out fire season,” Barnes said.

Here are some key takeaways from Barnes’ presentation:

• Wildfires in Utah have resulted in $28,473,064 in total suppression costs — of that, about $7,211,643 has been spent by the state.
• By the end of fire season, the total cost of suppression in Utah is projected to be about $37,500,000, with the state expected to spend $11,809,123.
• The state has spent about $1,994,132 in aviation costs for fire suppression, with roughly 260 flight hours dumping 797,675 gallons of water.
• The 18,000-acre Silver King Fire, currently about 88% contained, is projected to cost about $30 million, with roughly $3 million of that coming from Utah. The most expensive this year, Barnes called the Silver King a “costly fire.”
• The state shouldered the entire cost of the 543 acre Graff Point Fire, which is expected to cost about $7.5 million.

So far about 50,170 acres in Utah have burned, with about 25,422 a result of human-caused fires. In total, 544 of 961 wildfires were human-caused, which is above normal.

Lightning also continues to spark fires around the state — between Aug. 11-18, there were 110 new starts, 78 of them from lightning.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX