Fires are a natural part of most ecosystems, especially in the West. But how is Utah preparing for what could be an active fire season?
SALT LAKE CITY — On the evening of July 2 last summer, a fire broke out just behind Utah 's Capitol on Ensign Peak. In the dry grass, it spread across a quarter of an acre.This came less than a year after the Sandhurst fire blackened more than 200 acres in the same region.
The earlier fire prompted evacuations from homes, engaged more than 100 firefighters and took nearly a week to fully contain.Since it was much easier to access, this most recent Ensign Peak fire was mitigated much more quickly. In 20 minutes, the Salt Lake City Fire Department had the fire under control, and in another 20, it was fully extinguished. Heather White, who was house sitting for friends on vacation when they received an evacuation order, talks about what to do next with Curt Peterson after they evacuated with their friends three dogs, six bunnies and a bearded dragon because of the wildfire burning around Ensign Peak, which was encroaching on residential areas in Salt Lake City on July 20, 2024. Utah is preparing for what could be an active fire season. When Jake Eiting, the natural lands supervisor for the city's Trails and Natural Lands Department, walked up to the scene afterward. "It was pretty drastic looking," he told the Deseret News."The ground was completely charred, the fence was really damaged and harshly burned," he said. It was something "out of the ordinary from what you normally see."Eiting's team got to work cleaning up the fence posts and removing nails and screws to make the area safe to the public. Ensign Peak had mainly been covered in invasive grasses, including cheatgrass and cereal grass, which burn easily and quickly.The fire is an opportunity to reintroduce natural speciesFires are a natural part of most ecosystems, especially in the West."When a fire goes through, it leaves behind all that charred organic matter, which is exactly what the soil needs. So in a way, it's a completely natural process, and it's good for soil health," he said.On Ensign Peak, the Trails and Natural Lands Department wanted to "take advantage of the bare ground to reintroduce a number of different native plant seeds to the soil," Eiting said. Over the years, the ground's seed bank "has shifted from a native complement to a non-native complement." Salt Lake City firefighters put out a fire on Ensign Peak in Salt Lake City on July 2. Thanks to proactive strategies, firefighters contain
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