Aerial firefighting crews ready for southern Utah’s peak fire season

CEDAR CITY, Utah (ABC4) — As southern Utah heads into the peak of fire season, federal and state officials share that aerial resources and public safety plans are ready to deploy.

Crews from across the west met at the Cedar City Air Tanker Base on Thursday to talk strategy ahead of what could be an above-average fire season. With fires popping up in Nevada and Arizona already, they say these tankers might not be sitting there for long.

The base is one of the busiest in the region, supporting firefighting efforts across southern Utah, northern Arizona and eastern Nevada. While the season has been off to a slow start, crews said that could change in a flash.

“We haven’t had much of a season yet — it usually starts down south and moves its way north, so there’s plenty of resources to go around,” said Courtney Christensen with the Bureau of Land Management Color Country District.

When fire conditions escalate, so does the need for aircraft. That’s why aerial support is critical to getting fires under control before they grow. They aren’t assigned at random. As fires ignite across the west, they are moved where they’re needed most.

“We may have a fire here in Cedar, but the priority might be shifted to somewhere else because it’s brand new and threatening homes, communities, power lines, infrastructure, or major watersheds,” said Lindsey Fonger with Zion National Park Fire Management.

Fire officials said that this year’s outlook looks dry, and crews are expecting conditions to ramp up fast in the coming weeks. But as much as officials are focused on response, they’re also asking the public to do their part to prevent fires in the first place. The one growing threat responders face is drones.

“Drones in the wildland fire area sometimes force fire managers to suspend aerial resources, which ultimately could turn into those wildland fires becoming larger and more dangerous because we don’t have the aircraft to fight those fires,” said Brandon Davis with BLM Arizona Strip District Fire Management.

Officials ultimately warn that even one spark, under the right conditions, can be enough to trigger a wildfire.