Lessons learned from the so Cal Wildfires
by Michelle Peot
Water is dropped by helicopter on the advancing Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent)
Despite the recent storms, it's predicted to be a severe drought year in SW Utah. We had a non-existent monsoon, followed by an usually warm fall and a dry winter. As a community, we should prepare ourselves for a potentially bad fire season.
source: USDA's Wildfire Risk to Communities website
Lessons learned from the southern California Wildfires
Information is continually emerging from the devastating southern California wildfires, but to date the following lessons learned have come to light:
Firefighter staffing and management of aging, above-ground power lines are critical year-round.
Hydrant and firefighter water capacity planning need to factor in increasingly larger, urban and urban/wildland interface fires.
Decades of fire suppression have resulted in fuel loading on public lands, resulting in larger, hotter fires.
The fire conditions that occurred in Los Angeles are not all that different from here: dry underbrush, drought, urban/wildland interfaces, and high winds. Wildfires can also leave watersheds vulnerable to erosion, resulting in reduced reservoir capacity, which in turn impacts firefighting capacity. To make matters worse, federal funding for a large-scale, multi-year wildfire mitigation project in the Pine Valley Ranger District of Dixie National Forest is now frozen.
Impact on home insurance
Some local homeowners have experienced cancellations of home insurance and rate increases due to fire risk. More are expected as an outcome of the SoCal fires. Insurance companies use the following factors to determine fire risk:
Wildfire risk
Estimated cost to repair/replace homes relative to the number of local rate payers
Insurance Services Office (ISO) score
The ISO score measures fire preparedness, and is composed of a set of weighted factors. A lower score is better. Of note, the Hurricane Valley Fire District (HVFD) recently improved their rating from a 6 to a 4 by improvements to their operational capacity.
Coming together as a community
Hurricane Valley Fire District, Leeds Domestic Waterusers Association, and the Forest Service recently met to identify opportunities to partner to improve fire resiliency for the town of Leeds and our water infrastructure, but it will take all of us to protect our communities. Approximately, 90% of wildfires are human caused and therefore preventable.
Together with Hurricane Valley Fire District, we've put together a list of Community Fire Prevention and Mitigation FAQs, covering everything from home and landscape mitigation to reducing wildfire risk during outdoor recreation. The HVFD Wildland Fire Division offers free onsite consultations on how to mitigate your property. Contact Captain Tyler Hirshfeld at 435.635.9562 for more information. Through vigilance and community action, together we can protect our communities from wildfire.