As part of its wildfire risk assessment, the city collected responses from more than 400 residents, most of whom live in Park City full-time.
Over 80% said they support controlled burns to reduce wildfire risk, and more than 90% said they would like the city to establish laws requiring wildfire mitigation.
Top wildfire concerns for locals include poor air quality, the impact on water resources, and damage to homes and wildlife habitats.
More than half of people surveyed said they routinely clean up their home or business by removing debris like pine needles or by trimming trees.
Roughly 60% said they would like to have their property assessed by a wildfire specialist and the same percentage said they’d be willing to spend up to $2,000 annually on wildfire mitigation.
The survey was part of the city’s recently published wildfire risk assessment.
The report highlights another concern regarding wildfires — the erosion that comes with rain after a burn. Over 1,500 homes in the study area, which expands somewhat beyond city limits, are in watersheds with a high risk of damage from erosion.
The report also notes over 50% of Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain could also be at risk, along with several historic mining structures. 45% of the trails and 30% of the roads in the study area are also at risk.
“We have some good news here,” said Katharine Napier-Janz of wildfire management company Alpine Forestry, which contributed to the report. “Low risk areas include your fire departments, law enforcement centers, and your medical care.”
She said the findings will help the city as it plans for the future.
“This is not to instill a lot of fear. It’s more to help plan for, if a fire occurs, now we kind of have this modeled data that can tell us - what are some of the things we can do to protect these resources and assets that are threatened by post-fire sediment, and then what are the things that we know that are pretty low risk and maybe we don’t have to spend as much time thinking about mitigation strategies for those.”
Solutions the report suggests to mitigate the effects of post-fire damage include preserving open space in and adjacent to floodplains, and managing existing beaver populations, as the structures they build in streams can help with sediment capture.
A link to the full wildfire risk assessment can be found here.
