The Draper fire center that sets Utah's roadside fire danger ratings

DRAPER — The fire danger ratings on Utah's brown Smokey Bear signs are calculated each morning at a joint federal-state dispatch center in Draper, where staff run temperature, humidity, wind and plant moisture data through the ratings before anything is posted 1.

The Northern Utah Interagency Fire Center, known as the NUIFC, is at 14324 Pony Express Rd. in Draper 23. It is a joint dispatch center run in cooperation between the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the State of Utah's Forestry, Fire and State Lands division. The center states that it is responsible for dispatching and coordinating wildfires and incidents across approximately 15 million acres in 14 counties, Salt Lake County among them, and gives its average fire load as 500 fires a year 3. Units dispatching through the center include the BLM's Salt Lake Field Office, the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and state fire areas in northern Utah 3.

Brook Chadwick, the fire chief for the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, described the process to The Salt Lake Tribune, which reported it on Oct. 11. "It's more complex than I think folks would ever think," Chadwick told the Tribune. "It's not just we wake up and feel like it's high today." 1

The signs show five levels — low, medium, high, very high or extreme — and the ratings cover three areas in northern Utah: the West Desert and its mountain ranges, the Wasatch Mountains and the western Uinta Mountains, according to the Tribune 1. The same rating therefore applies at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon and at the entrance to Logan Canyon, both of which sit in the Wasatch area 1. The center's own fuels page lists four fire danger rating areas it works with: Northern Utah, the Salt Lake Desert, the Wasatch Mountains and the Uinta Mountains 4.

The Forest Service's page for the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest states that fire restrictions on the forest are set on current and predicted weather, fuel moisture, fire activity and the firefighting resources available, and it notes that Smokey Bear has served 81 years as the national fire prevention mascot 5.

Crews change the signs about once a week, usually before the weekend, unless conditions move fast enough to require an earlier change, Chadwick told the Tribune 1. The center calculates the ratings from roughly May or June through October or November, depending on the weather, and it sends the daily rating out to fire departments and ranger offices by text and radio 1. Staff also project fire potential seven days out, which matters because a camper or hunter may pass a single sign on the way up and not see another for days 1.

Chadwick told the Tribune that smaller fire departments sometimes display out-of-date or incorrect ratings, and that the Forest Service is working to bring departments onto the shared data 1. Theft is a recurring problem: "Our biggest problem actually is people stealing the Smokey Bear part of the sign," he said. "That happens more often than you would ever believe." 1

Sources: 1 The Salt Lake Tribune, "Those classic roadside Smokey Bear signs? Changing them is more complicated than you might think," by Jose Davila IV, Oct. 11, 2026 — https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/10/11/wildfire-danger-signs-utahs/ 2 Northern Utah Interagency Fire Center, aviation page (address and phone) — https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/dispatch/ut-nuc/aviation/aviation.html 3 Northern Utah Interagency Fire Center, "About Northern Utah Interagency Fire Center (NUIFC)" — https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/dispatch/ut-nuc/about/about.html 4 Northern Utah Interagency Fire Center, fuels and fire danger rating areas page — https://gacc.nifc.gov/gbcc/dispatch/ut-nuc/fuels/fuels.html 5 U.S. Forest Service, Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, fire prevention and fire danger status — https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/uinta-wasatch-cache/fire/prevention