WEBER COUNTY — As investigators looked further Sunday into the death of a cliff jumper at Causey Reservoir, state law enforcement officers urged people to wear their life jackets at Causey and on other bodies of water around Utah.

According to Sgt. Trent Currie of the Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Law Enforcement, the man who died was not wearing a life jacket.

“Unfortunately, he did not resurface,” Currie said during an interview with KSL TV. “It’s a very tragic incident. Our condolences go out to the family. It’s very sad.”

Currie said a DNR Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) team helped recover the man’s body Saturday night from the chilly depths of the reservoir.

With that death and another death at Yuba State Park Reservoir Saturday, law enforcement officers were reminding people about life jackets.

“It’s very important to wear your life jackets,” Currie said. “Life jackets are required here [at Causey Reservoir] for everybody. You have to wear them whether you are swimming, on a kayak, or on a paddleboard.”

Under Utah law, each vessel — even a paddleboard or kayak — is required to have at least one U.S. Coast Guard-approved wearable or inflatable life jacket for each person on board.

Though the rules at Causey Reservoir require all adults and children to wear life jackets out on the water, Currie acknowledged that compliance has been a challenge, with possibly upward of 80 percent of people not wearing their life vests on any given day.

He said people could potentially be cited for not wearing life jackets or having them present in other parts of the state.

“It’s almost like wearing your seatbelt in a car out on the highways,” Currie said. “We would definitely recommend and suggest that you wear those life jackets.”

Kyler Klomp, who occasionally visits Causey with his family, was wearing a life jacket to paddle board on Sunday, but said he had heard why some people choose not to wear them when they go cliff jumping.

“I know some people don’t want to wear their life jackets for that because it kind of hurts when it comes up under the water,” Klomp said. “It’s still important to wear it no matter what.”

He echoed law enforcement’s encouragement of people to wear life jackets for their safety.

“Obviously there is risk when you’re dealing with the water,” Klomp said. “Don’t do anything too crazy, you know.”

Related stories: Paddleboarder dies at Silver Lake Flat Reservoir after helping child

A surging wildfire ripping through eastern Utah wilderness over the weekend triggered a rare “firenado”, unleashing a terrifying mix of wind and flames that left one home and several other outbuildings severely damaged.

The Deer Creek Fire had already burned several thousand acres just north of La Sal on Saturday when the column of flames and hot gases began spinning, creating the surreal sight of a firenado.

“One of our firefighters captured this unusual phenomenon of a fire vortex tearing through pinyon-juniper woodland on the Deer Creek Fire, just outside of La Sal,” said officials with the Utah Bureau of Land Management.

The firenado did significant damage as it wreaked havoc on a neighborhood caught in the blaze. The National Weather Service estimated that wind speeds inside the twister reached 122 mph – strong enough to rate an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.

What’s worse, instead of typical tornadoes that may only spend moments to seconds blasting a neighborhood as the storm blows through, this firenado was nearly stationary, spending 12 minutes swirling its flame-infused fury.

“Dwellings and outbuildings in the area sustained a mix of fire and wind damage,” said NWS meteorologists in Grand Junction, Colorado, who later surveyed the damage. “Many of the affected structures burned after the tornado occurred, but wind damage sustained by the remaining structures resulted in the tornado being given an EF-2 rating.”

Luckily, residents had already evacuated with the approaching wildfire and no one was injured, NWS officials said.

Fire whirls or “firenados” are spinning columns of hot air and gases rising up from a fire, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. When the air and gases rise, they also carry up smoke, debris, and even fire, as seen in the vortex of fire in the video.

The vortices can be as small as under one foot wide to over 500 feet wide, the NWCG said. Fire whirls on the larger side can be as strong as a tornado, as evidenced on Saturday.

One of the largest and most destructive fire whirls occurred in 2018 during the Carr Fire in Redding, California, the National Weather Service said. It had wind speeds of about 143 mph, equivalent to those found in EF-3 tornadoes.

Tornadoes in any form, be it thunderstorm or wildfire-driven, are rare in Utah.

The firenado was only the second twister to be given an EF-2 rating in Utah since the Enhanced Fujita scale was implemented in 2007. Prior to that, only nine other tornadoes had been rated at least an F2 on the original Fujita Scale since 1950.

Meanwhile, firefighters are still battling the Deer Creek Fire, which had burned more than 15,600 acres as of Thursday morning’s update. The blaze is about 7% contained. It’s one of eight large wildfires burning in Utah that have scorched over 60,000 acres so far this summer.