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SALT LAKE CITY — Federal, state and local agencies are resuming work to reduce wildfire risks in Parleys Canyon, building on what began in October.
A team of workers from six agencies began mulching in the canyon on the south side of I-80 Thursday, according to the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. It's a tactic used to "reduce potential wildfire size and severity," as noted by the U.S. Forest Service.
Crews already thinned about 262 acres of oak brush on Salt Lake City land, as well as 70 acres of public land managed by the Forest Service during work that began in the fall. The team is slated to continue thinning an additional 128 acres of Salt Lake City land and 194 acres of federally-managed land, as crews move toward Lambs Canyon by the Salt Lake-Summit county border.
The team is composed of workers from the U.S. Forest Service, Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Summit and Salt Lake Counties, and the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities.
"This project is an important component of Salt Lake City's overall watershed protection efforts. Salt Lake City's drinking water quality is very important to our community (and) a catastrophic wildfire would pose a significant risk to the city's drinking water quality and supply," Laura Briefer, director of Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, said in a statement.
Winter's record snowpack has helped ease the severity of drought conditions in Parleys Canyon, as well as in other places across the state. While the U.S. Drought Monitor lists most of Salt Lake City — and nearly half of Utah — as "abnormally dry" for the start of June, there are no drought conditions listed for the canyon area at the moment.
This year's fire season is also off to a slow start, which is good news. There have only been 90 wildfire starts that have burned a total of 749 acres of land across Utah this year, according to the Utah Wildfire Dashboard, which is operated by state and federal land managers.
To put that in perspective there were already 93 new wildfire starts by May 2, 2022, when state officials held their annual wildfire outlook press conference last year. More than 220 wildfires had been sparked by mid-May back in 2021, too, which shows how drastically different the situation is at the moment.
But all the moisture does raise some concerns. Karl Hunt, a spokesman with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, told KSL-TV last month that all the rain and snow of the past few months will help fire-fueling grasses grow taller, which will eventually "cure out" and increase wildfire risks sometime down the road.
Parleys Canyon is an area of concern. In 2021, a wildfire there burned more than 600 acres and led to thousands of evacuations in Salt Lake and Summit counties. Firefighters quickly determined that a vehicle's "poor working" catalytic converter ignited the blaze by I-80 in the canyon.
The current project aims to reduce the risk of even bigger fires in the future, which could threaten homes, wildfire and water supply.
Robby Edgel, a habitat restoration biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, added that work completed last year "has already been really beneficial" for wildlife and the continued efforts are expected to provide "a significant increase in the quantity and diversity of understory vegetation." He said it will benefit deer and elk, as well as other species.
"This treatment work and new vegetation will also help increase the amount of wildflowers on the landscape, which benefit our pollinator species, such as bees and butterflies," he said. "We are excited to build upon the great work that was started last fall and continue to make positive changes to the landscape for wildlife species."
