This year will mark five years since 5,000 households evacuated in the Pinebrook and Summit Park areas during the Parleys Canyon Fire.
Pinebrook resident Mitzi McIntyre and her family experienced it firsthand.
“I just remember texting six friends, and six cars showed up. And it still chokes me up,” she told KPCW. “They said, ‘What can we get?’ and we just took photos, the pets, the neighbors’ pets, and we left. And the sheriff came around and drew a big circle at the end of our driveway, meaning you know the house was empty.”
McIntyre said there were so many unknowns back then since she’d never evacuated before. This year, as the nation’s largest wildfires roll over southern Utah, she and others in her neighborhood are preparing early.
“The first thing is to make sure your homeowner's insurance policy is up to date and coincides with the current value of your house,” McIntyre recommended. “If you've lived anywhere for any part of time in Park City — what you purchased your house for and what it's probably worth now are a couple different things.”
She knows what she needs to grab at a moment’s notice and has signed up for Summit County’s emergency alerts. She’s also thinning out brush around her home.
Summit County Emergency Manager Kathryn McMullin says local authorities learned a lot from the 2021 Parleys Canyon Fire too.
McMullin says they will communicate differently in the event of severe wildfires and evacuations. That means pushing out updates at regular intervals — even if there’s no new information — to combat uncertainty.
They’re also working to diversify shelter options.
“When we had 8,000 people evacuated and one person stayed overnight, maybe we need some redundancies or some other options,” McMullin said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” June 30. “We want to have options where people can bring their pets, if they need that, but what does that look like? Maybe that looks like partnerships with Airbnb or short-term rentals … versus staying in a cot in a high school.”
McIntyre was able to stay across Interstate 80 in Jeremy Ranch.
“We went down to the bottom of Pinebrook, and I remember seeing the big plane that dropped the fire retardant come over Parleys, and I thought, ‘Cavalry is here, our house is going to be safe,’” she said. “I think we were out four days or so, and it was pretty nail-biting.”
McIntyre also recommends reaching out to neighbors regarding their travel schedules.
“In 2021, my neighbor across the street was out of town, and that's probably the worst feeling is to call your neighbor and say, ‘I've got 10 minutes, what can I grab from your house?’” McIntyre said.
This year, she says, they have a plan.
