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Officials say “You need to plan and practice” for fire at Parleys Fire panel

KPCW

A community forum looking at the response to August’s Parleys Canyon Fire was held Thursday night at the Park City Library’s Santy Auditorium. Local officials discussed what homeowners should prepare for and what is being done to reduce the risk of future fires.

 

The Parleys Canyon Fire burned 541 acres just west of Summit Park in August. Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes for several days and the response involved agencies at the local, state, and national level.

 

Thankfully, no homes were lost and the fire actually never crossed into Summit County.

 

At Thursday night’s community panel, government, fire, and law enforcement representatives from Summit County, Park City, and Utah Forestry, Fire, and State Lands came together to recap the response to the fire and answer questions from the public.

 

In short, the response went well, but there was a consensus that a little bit of luck was involved with significant rainfall moving through the Wasatch just days after the fire started. The rain, combined with the rapid response from firefighting aircraft and ground crews, led to the fire being declared 100% contained on August 22nd -- only eight days after it started.

 

Summit County Deputy Manager Janna Young shared her personal story of losing a home in the 2000 Cerro Grande wildfire in New Mexico. That fire claimed over 400 homes and Young offered some advice to those in attendance on how to be prepared for the next wildfire. 

 

“You need to sort of plan and practice lots of different scenarios with your family,” Young said. “As I’m sure you all were aware, when you got that call to evacuate, you weren’t all just sitting around watching TV together in your home, right? You were probably in different locations. In your planning, think about those different scenarios and decide what’s our communication plan as a family? Where are we gonna join up together? Who is responsible for taking what? And other members of the family and taking care of all of that, and then practice that. It’s really important because a plan is only well executed if you’ve been able to practice it.”

 

Young also recommended photographing every room in your house and keeping home insurance as up to date as possible in case property is damaged or lost in a fire.

 

Park City approved spending $300,000 in late August on wildfire mitigation efforts on Treasure Hill in Old Town. Greg Barrows is the president of the American Flag homeowners association in Deer Valley and asked if some of those same efforts can be deployed in other parts of Park City.

 

“What can we expect?” asked Barrows. “How do we get involved? How do you schedule a plan that takes into consideration other areas other than Treasure Mountain? How do you get Deer Valley to work with you and come in and clean up some of the crap that’s up there?

 

Park City Emergency Program Manager Mike McComb explained the city estimates that the cost of fire mitigation work for all of Park City would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $28 million. He said following the city’s annual emergency management planning process, the Western Summit County Fuels Committee was formed to coordinate mitigation efforts between local governments and private landowners.  

 

“I’ll say that that precise scenario that you’re describing, sir, is the exact goal of the Western Summit County Fuels Committee,” he said. “It’s to engage as many private and public land owners within the area to work on a collaborative, cooperative project to help reduce the risk that you’re describing.” 

 

McComb and the other officials in attendance also stressed the importance of individual homeowners taking it upon themselves to clear their property of dry brush and making sure their homes are as protected as possible.

 

A Summit County fire resource guide can be found here, and the complete recording of the community forum can be watched on Summit County’s Facebook page.

Sean Higgins covers all things Park City and is the Saturday Weekend Edition host at KPCW. Sean spent the first five years of his journalism career covering World Cup skiing for Ski Racing Media here in Utah and served as Senior Editor until January 2020. As Senior Editor, he managed the day-to-day news section of skiracing.com, as well as produced and hosted Ski Racing’s weekly podcast. During his tenure with Ski Racing Media, he was also a field reporter for NBC Sports, covering events in Europe.