Utah
‘Utahns were vigilant’: How Utah’s 2023 wildfire season became a smashing success
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SALT LAKE CITY — State and federal firefighters feared the worst when Utah’s record-setting 30-inch statewide snowpack started to melt in the spring because they knew it would produce plenty of new vegetation that could dry out over the summer and easily burn.
Those concerns ultimately never came to fruition during the traditional fire season. Months later, officials gathered to celebrate one of Utah’s mildest wildfire seasons in state history.
There have been a little fewer than 800 fires that have burned nearly 18,000 acres this year, according to the Utah Wildfire Dashboard, a joint operation between state and federal land managers. Barring any changes in the final two months of the year, it would represent about an 18% decrease in starts and nearly a 30% decrease in acreage from 2022.
However, the firefighters focused their attention on the number of human-caused wildfires, which are down significantly this year.
Only about 41% of this year’s fires were determined to be caused by human activity, burning a little more than 3,200 acres — a dropoff of about 18,000 acres from last year, about the same size as the city of Lehi. This is much lower than the national 10-year average of 87% and the percentage of human-caused wildfires in Utah just three years ago, which reached a record 78% in 2020.
“Utahns were vigilant and chose to recreate responsibly,” said Utah fire management officer Brett Ostler.
What helped Utah’s fire decline?
Two major factors helped quell Utah’s fire concerns this year.
First, the moisture kept coming. Aside from a hot and dry July, Utah’s summer was relatively mild and wet. The state collected an average of 3.29 inches of precipitation over meteorological summer, over a third of an inch above the 20th-century normal. It’s Utah’s third straight summer above the normal after five straight seasons well below it, per National Centers for Environmental Information data.
The timing of the rain also mattered. About 60% of this summer’s precipitation came in August just as a lot of the vegetation was starting to dry out. This season’s average temperature also wound up being Utah’s lowest since 2014, 1.5 degrees above 20th-century normal, according to the data.
But Utahns also understood the assignment, Ostler says. He credits the efforts that people took to reduce fire risks as a key reason that there were fewer fires this year, pointing out that Utah’s Fire Sense campaign received national recognition just last month for the reduction in human-caused fires since it began in the spring of 2021.
“A lot of these fires are caused by humans and human nature, and for them to act more responsibly is starting to sink and resonate with a lot of these people,” he said.
Getting a head start on the future
The lack of fires this summer may pay off in the future, too. Ostler said many firefighters turned their attention to fuel reduction projects in “critical areas” that can help reduce fire risks in the coming years.
These projects are targeting “important acres,” such as urban-wildland interfaces, adds Lucas Minton, regional fire director for the U.S. Forest Service. The agency has also started multiyear projects that aim to improve high-risk forests, such as parts of the Uinta Mountains.
We recognize that there is still so much work to do.
– Brett Ostler, Utah fire management officer
“We’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into that this year,” he said, noting that there is a large amount of new federal funds for these types of projects in Utah.
Chris Delaney, the Bureau of Land Management’s Utah fire management officer, says this is also the case for land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.
Still room for improvement
Despite this year’s success, firefighters are on standby in case something drastically changes.
While Utah’s fire season historically wraps up around the end of October, state and federal firefighters are quick to acknowledge that the season has become more year-round in Utah and across the West. This is why Delaney said there shouldn’t be any “complacency” when it comes to wildfire safety.
Ostler acknowledges that, despite the major reduction in human-caused fires, there is also still room for improvement. He said teams still came across far too many unattended campfires this summer, which may become a key topic Fire Sense addresses in the future.
“We recognize that there is still so much work to do,” he said. “We’re just going to continue to do what we’re doing with Fire Sense and just continue to drive that message home that people need to be more responsible when they recreate. They need to continue to do what they’re doing as far as helping us reduce these.”
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Welcome to the NHL On Tap, a daily look at the games on the NHL schedule. There is one game on the schedule for Sunday, which will be televised nationally in the United States and Canada.
Game of the day
Utah Hockey Club at Toronto Maple Leafs (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, TSN4, NHLN, Utah16)
Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares have all stepped up for the Maple Leafs (12-6-2) in the absence of captain Auston Matthews and look to continue the trend against Utah (8-9-3) at Scotiabank Arena. Marner has 12 points (four goals, eight assists), Nylander nine points (four goals, five assists) and Tavares eight points (four goals, four assists) in the seven games without Matthews, who is out with an upper-body injury. Toronto has won three in a row and is 6-1-0 without Matthews, who skated prior to practice Saturday and said he could return from an upper-body injury this upcoming week. Marner leads Toronto with 26 points (six goals, 20 assists) in 20 games and has points in six of the seven games Matthews has missed. Maple Leafs goalie Joseph Wall made 31 saves in a 3-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday for his first shutout of the season and second in the NHL. Utah is playing the second game of a back-to-back for the first time in team history and will look to build on a 6-1 win at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. Dylan Guenther had two goals and an assist, and Clayton Keller had three assists, helping Utah end a three-game losing streak. Goalie Jaxson Stauber could make his Utah debut after being recalled from Tucson of the American Hockey League on Wednesday; the 25-year-old has not played an NHL game since Feb. 22, 2023, with the Chicago Blackhawks. No. 1 goalie Connor Ingram has missed the past two games with an upper-body injury.
It takes a complete football team to win a championship. Iowa State is finding that out with each passing week.
Seemingly left for dead in the heated Big 12 Conference race, the Cyclones now find themselves one win away from competing for the league title following a thrilling 31-28 victory over Utah Saturday night.
Iowa State (9-2, 7-2) reached the nine-win mark before a bowl game for the first time in program history, and could end one of the longest droughts in NCAA history by reaching 10 wins. The Cyclones and Vanderbilt are the only remaining Power 5 programs to never reach 10 wins, as Indiana did earlier this year.
After taking a 24-13 lead on Utah midway through the third quarter, the Cyclones needed a rally, scoring the game-winning touchdown with 91 seconds to go. The defense forced a missed field goal to seal the win.
Here are three stars from Iowa State’s win over Utah:
Known for his power running, Carson Hansen showed off his arm on a key third-down trick play that led to his second rushing touchdown. Hansen, a sophomore, took a halfback pass and found Gabe Burkle for a 26-yard completion.
That put the ball at the Utah 3 and Hansen would plow his way into the end zone on the next play for the game-winning points. He finished the night with a team-high 57 yards on 14 carries to go along with the 26-yard pass while also catching two balls for another 28 yards.
At 6-2 and over 220 pounds, Hansen is the thunder to Abu Sama’s lightning. He now has 11 rushing touchdowns on the year to go along with 560 yards after rushing for just 67 last season as a freshman.
Anytime Rocco Becht needed to make a big play in the passing game, he looked in the direction of Jayden Higgins. And Higgins stepped up for his quarterback, who was not quite as sharp as he typically has been.
Higgins finished with nine receptions for 155 yards and a touchdown, surpassing 1,000 yards for the season. The 6-foot-4 senior out of South Miami became just the seventh different Cyclone to reach the number after missing out last year with 983 yards.
With at least two, and maybe more, games to go, Higgins sits sixth on the school’s single-season list for yards with 1,015. Hakeem Butler is first with 1,318. Higgins and teammate Jaylin Noel, who has 976 yards, are set to become the first Cyclone teammates to eclipse 1,000 yards in the same season in school history.
Higgins is also just two yards away from becoming just the 10th Iowa State receiver to reach 2,000 career yards, joining the likes of Allen Lazard, Xavier Hutchinson and Charlie Kolar, along with Noel.
It’s been a difficult season in regards to injuries on both sides of the ball for Iowa State. But the defense has really been hurt with Malik Verdon out.
Verdon, a junior, recorded a team-leading 12 tackles including a sack, as the Cyclones held Utah to just 99 yards of total offense through three quarters.
And while the Utes were able to finally put together sustained drives in the fourth, when they needed to make a play, Iowa State did. Verdon went out for a short time after appearing to reinjure his arm that has a cast due to a hairline fracture, but would return to the field later in the fourth.
The Iowa State football team has two weeks to solidify themselves and possibly land a spot in the Big 12 championship game in December.
Part one of the two-piece series starts Saturday night, as the Cyclones (8-2, 5-2) make a visit to Salt Lake City to play Utah (4-6, 1-6).
Sitting a game behind co-conference leaders BYU and Colorado, Iowa State is in position but on the outside looking in for the time being. They also have red-hot Arizona State to contend with, as the Sun Devils have quickly climbed the standings and sit tied with ISU.
Utah has dropped six straight since starting the season off 4-0 as preseason favorites to win the Big 12. Of those six losses, four have been decided by eight points or less. Last Saturday, though, they suffered a 25-point setback to Colorado.
Along with several tough losses, the Utes have been without star quarterback Cam Rising since the losing skid began. Rising is out for the season following multiple injuries, as Isaac Wilson – the brother of NFL QB Zack Wilson – has replaced him.
Iowa State and Utah have a bit of a history, playing each other five times between 1970-2010. The Cyclones won the first four meetings between the two while the Utes won the most recent, claiming a 68-27 victory. Utah was undefeated and ranked 10th in the country during that encounter.
The oddsmakers have the Cyclones set as a 6.5-point favorite. ESPN’s FPI puts them at just over 63 percent to win the game.
Here are the details on how to watch, stream and follow Iowa State’s game at Utah on Saturday night:
Iowa State at Utah TV Channel, Live Stream, Odds
Who: Iowa State at Utah in a Big 12 football game
When: 6:30 p.m. CT | Saturday, November 23
Where: Rice-Eccles Stadium | Salt Lake City, Utah
Live Stream: Stream Iowa State-Cincinnati live on fuboTV (Start your free trial)
TV Channel: FOX
Betting Odds: Iowa State is favored by 6.5 points. Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportbook
Our Prediction: Iowa State 24, Utah 10
Live Updates, Highlights: Follow the game on Iowa State on SI for live updates, in-game analysis and big-play highlights throughout Saturday’s matchup.
* Latest betting odds for Iowa State
* Matt Campbell talks up the Utah defense
* Cyclones right back into contention in wild, wild Big 12
*Three stars in Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati including Stevo Klotz
*Complete game recap of Iowa State’s win over Cincinnati
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