Two days of burning above Suncrest, and a wildfire fee in law with no amount

DRAPER — Draper City Fire's wildland crews joined the Utah Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday, Oct. 21, for a second consecutive day of controlled burning near Suncrest and Peak View, work the city said on X would last until about 3 p.m. 1. The first burn came Tuesday, Oct. 20, in the same area and adjacent open space and was scheduled to run until about 5:30 p.m. 2. The city's Tuesday notice did not say how many acres the burn covered or which trails or roads, if any, were affected 2.

Residents near Suncrest and Peak View were told to expect visible smoke, and Draper City issued no evacuation or road-closure notice as part of the Tuesday announcement 2. Salt Lake County Emergency Management, which relayed the work, said the burning is designed to reduce the buildup of vegetation and other fuels and to lower the risk of future wildfires along the Wasatch range 1. The agency asked residents not to call 911 to report smoke from a prescribed burn, and to call 911 for smoke or fire that appears unrelated to the burns or poses an immediate threat to life or property 1.

The ground being treated is the part of Draper where houses meet undeveloped land. Suncrest sits inside the wildland-urban interface, and its wildfire threat trends higher than the valley floor's because of slope, vegetation and proximity to open space, according to Suncrest Lifestyle, a community site the Herald cites; Draper has adopted the state's WUI code, which that site describes as covering fire-resistant roofing and siding, ember-resistant vents and vegetation clearance for homes near wildland areas 2.

That code is one half of a structure the Legislature built in 2025. The other half is a map, and attached to the map is a fee: written into statute, in effect since Jan. 1, and not yet set, assessed or collected.

House Bill 48, sponsored by Casey Snider in the House with Michael K. McKell as Senate sponsor, took effect Jan. 1, 2026, and appropriated no money 3. It directed the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands to establish, by rule, the boundary of high-risk wildland-urban interface property inside its wildfire risk assessment mapping tool 3. Draper City told residents in January that about 60,000 buildings statewide, including some in Draper, fall inside that boundary, and that the division built it from a structure exposure score running from 1, lowest risk, to 8, highest, including buildings that scored 7 or higher and sat within 250 meters — 820 feet — of two or more other buildings 4. The city said it took no part in drawing the map or running the program and directed questions to the division 4.

The fee sits in a section the bill enacted, Section 17-16-22. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, a county officer is to annually assess a fee against the owner of high-risk wildland-urban interface property within the incorporated and unincorporated portions of the county, in the amount the division sets under Section 65A-8-402 3. The duty carries a condition: it arises if evaluation of that property is assigned to a county under 65A-8-402, and the division decides at the beginning of each calendar year whether to make that assignment 3.

Under 65A-8-402 the division sets the amount annually, based on the square footage of a structure inside the boundary, and may tier it by where a property falls on a three-class triage scale 3. A wildland-urban interface coordinator evaluates and classifies the property, then informs the owner of the classification, the fee the owner shall pay, and the resources available to bring the property to the first or second classification by applying the interface building standards 3. The county transmits what it collects to the division for deposit in the Wildland-urban Interface Prevention, Preparedness, and Mitigation Fund after keeping enough to cover its own costs, and it may hold a lien on the property for a fee that is past due 3.

None of that has produced a number. Draper City told residents on Jan. 29 that the assessment program was not ready and that the state expected it to start later this year, and its notice carried no fee figure 4. The division's own page on the program still takes names for a waitlist for a lot assessment "once the program goes live," states that only assessments by certified assessors under its standards will be valid, that all structures within the high-risk boundary are covered, and that the homeowner pays for mitigation or hardening of the home 5. The same page directs special districts to engage city councils to secure adoption of the interface code by Jan. 1, 2026 5.

Insurance turns on the same boundary. An insurer determining whether property is high-risk wildland-urban interface "may only use the boundary" in the state's mapping tool for that determination, though it may use additional fire hazard data in setting a rate or underwriting if that use is consistent with the boundary 3. An insurer that cancels or declines to renew coverage on wildfire grounds must state in the notice the facts behind the decision with reasonable precision, and must provide those facts on request when a premium rises by more than 20% of the previous term's 3. The section applies on and after Jan. 1, 2026, and an owner inside the interface may complain to the Insurance Department, which may investigate and issue orders and penalties 3.

Local government carries its own obligation under the same law: a county or municipality must adopt and enforce the wildland-urban interface building standards, and the division may choose not to pay a local government's costs under a cooperative wildfire agreement if it does not 3.

What happens next is administrative. The division decides each calendar year whether counties take over the evaluations 3, sets the fee annually 3, and beginning Jan. 1, 2028, must maintain a database insurers can query for a property's triage classification 3. Until an amount is set, a Suncrest homeowner's exposure is a rating to look up — an address search at wildfirerisk.utah.gov returns it, according to Draper City 4 — and a start date the state has described only as later this year 4.

The burns closed out a heavy season. The state recorded 1,240 wildfires in 2026 that burned 560,795 acres, roughly half of them caused by lightning, according to state data the Herald reported 1.