SALT LAKE CITY — Northern Utah is now included in an expanded Red Flag Warning issued ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with fire officials warning residents to use caution with fireworks and campfires.

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The National Weather Service updated its warning Wednesday to include all of northern Utah, along with the Grand Staircase and the San Rafael Swell. While the warning is in effect until 9 p.m., condition are expected to redevelop against the Swell Thursday.

Wind gusts are forecast to reach up to 30 miles per hour, with relative humidity measuring between 10-15%, which creates critical fire conditions.

The following counties are now under a Red Flag Warning:

• Box Elder
• Cache
• Emery
• Garfield
• Juab
• Kane
• Morgan
• Rich
• Salt Lake
• San Juan
• Sanpete
• Summit
• Tooele
• Utah
• Washington
• Wasatch
• Wayne
• Weber

Crews were battling a blaze in an Ivins neighborhood Wednesday, with air resources being used to drop water on the flames.

Santa Clara-Ivins Fire & Rescue

On Wednesday, the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands said it had seen an increase in fire starts from debris burns and vehicles across the state. According to the agency, there have been 56 fire starts cause by vehicles and 31 by debris burns since June 1.

Drivers are warned to check their brakes and tires, which if worn out, can can sparks. If there’s a need to pull over to the side of a road, make sure to park away from dry vegetation and keep trailer chains tightened so they don’t drag on the road.

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribune’s ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utah’s biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab. [Subscribe to our newsletter here.]

Renters in most Utah counties likely don’t make enough to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment, according to new data.

The “Out of Reach 2024″ report was released recently the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The report uses HUD’s fair-market rent calculations to determine the housing wage — how much a full-time worker must earn to afford a modest rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on housing — for states, counties and metropolitan areas across the country.

The report found that “more renters than ever before are paying more than they can afford on rent,” and risk homelessness, said Diane Yentel, who heads the coalition.

That includes Utah, where the mean wage for renters was lower than the housing wage in all but four counties, and was within 50 cents of it in another two. All six are rural counties.

Renters in Utah can’t afford to buy a home in all but one county, according to a recent analysis by The Salt Lake Tribune of U.S. Census Bureau and real-estate industry data. And based on a Tribune analysis of the new report, they can’t afford to rent in most counties, either.

The coalition’s analysis found Utah’s statewide housing wage — what a person would have to earn to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair-market rent — is $26.89 an hour.

That cost varies from $17.40 an hour in several rural counties to $30.88 in Salt Lake County, and a maximum of $34.75 in Summit County. There is data available for every county in Utah except Daggett County.

Meanwhile, the mean renter wage is lower statewide and in nearly every county than the housing wage — sometimes by double-digit numbers.

It’s only higher in Duchesne, Garfield, San Juan and Wayne counties, all rural counties in eastern or southeastern Utah.

Mean renter wages also are lower but within 50 cents an hour in two other counties — Box Elder County in the northwestern part of the state and Uintah County in eastern Utah. That gap is small enough that the NLIHC determined a renter could work one job and still afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment.

In other counties, the gap between the typical renter and housing wages varies from 87 cents in Beaver County to $15.64 in Kane County and averages about $7 an hour (more than $14,500 a year).

There is more affordability for one-bedroom apartments, but the mean renter wage is still short in 18 counties, including Cache, Davis, Grand, Iron, Kane, Salt Lake, Tooele, Washington and Weber.

The gap matters because even in “an improving economic landscape,” renters continue to struggle, Yentel said, and that leads to more evictions and higher rates of homelessness.

There is, however, some good news for Utah renters.

For one, the state’s housing wage is about in the middle compared to other states.

Utah’s housing wage also is lower than neighboring Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, as well as other western states like California, Oregon and Washington. Utah’s northern neighbors have housing wages somewhat lower than Utah’s — Idaho’s is about $4 lower, and Wyoming’s is about $8 lower.

And though there are new and luxury rentals across the state that cost much more than the fair-market rent HUD set, one analysis found typical rents for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments are lower.

Median rent along the Wasatch Front is between $77 and $166 a month less than fair-market rent for two-bedroom apartments, according to data from ApartmentList.com.

And median rent is only higher than fair-market in Davis County by $8, the ApartmentList data shows — it is lower in Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties by at least $80.

Utah has focused on ways to improve the state’s housing crisis, but most have focused on homeownership.

As part of the Out of Reach report, the coalition suggested solutions for the rental side, though they are actions the federal government is advised to take. The coalition has recommended:

• Long-term federal investments in affordable housing, including rental assistance.

• Construction of deeply affordable housing.

• Preservation of existing affordable housing.

• Stronger renter protections.

Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.

SPRINGVILLE, Utah — Art Wing still fondly remembers when his late dad Hal Wing, the founder of Little Giant Ladders, said: “If you concentrate on building the company and not the person, you will fail. If you concentrate on building the person, the company will take care of itself.”

That motto is still at Little Giant’s core today.

In the early 1970s, Hal was a salesman living in Germany, forging a friendship with an inventor who created a ladder that Hal thought was a technological marvel. He took the idea back to the United States, perfecting it and pattening it before heading out on the road.

“He bought a pinto station wagon and he loaded it with ladders, and he went on the road upwards of 250 days a year just selling them out of that thing,” Art recalled.

Art says the roadshow worked, and people quickly took note of their sturdy ladders and all they could do.

In 2002, Little Giant Ladders climbed to new heights by hitting television screens all over the country with an infomercial that often ran late at night and on weekend afternoons. It was a catchy ad that ran for 16 years and racked up sales of over a billion dollars in ladders sold.

Today, the Little Giant brand continues where it started, calling Utah home.

Company president and CEO Ryan Moss says the Beehive State is headquarters for good reason.

“We have great people here in the state of Utah. Honestly, that is one of the best blessings about Little Giant, is the wonderful people that we get to work with every single day,” Moss said. “They’re hardworking, they’re smart, they’re creative.” 

While Utah is the Little Giant premier factory, the company has facilities and warehouses all over the world, working to keep their standards and safety high. Globally, Little Giant employs several thousand people, together taking a small idea to a huge enterprise and stepping up the ladder of success with no end in sight