The Kamas City Council is poised to create its own wildland urban interface code to comply with a new state law intended to help Utahns fortify their homes against wildfires.
The state Legislature passed House Bill 48 last year as an attempt to mitigate wildfire risks in wildland urban interface areas, or WUIs, which refer to zones where human developments meet or “interface” with wildland, open spaces relatively untouched by humans.
The law required city governments to approve an ordinance adopting specific building codes for new developments in WUIs by Jan. 1. The ordinances would force new builds to use fire-resistant materials for structures in addition to ensuring a robust enough water system and roadway for fire crews to access the area in the event of a wildfire.
However, many municipalities in Utah, including Kamas, did not meet the deadline because of lingering questions regarding how the legislation works. Fire officials also said they were waiting on an updated statewide map of high-risk WUIs from the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, which was not published until late December.
Summit County Fire Warden Bryce Boyer told the Kamas City Council that he didn’t believe the state would punish the municipality for being out of compliance, but he encouraged councilors to create a WUI map for Kamas and adopt the required building codes by summer.
Under H.B. 48, the state can refuse to pay for the costs associated with damages and large-scale responses if the city were to experience a large wildfire without an ordinance in place, Boyer explained. That’s why Kamas must have a plan in place by wildfire season.
The bulk of the state law is directed toward homeowners, though, not city officials.
The law established a new annual fee between $20 and $100 for homeowners within a WUI, with the specific amount determined by the taxable square footage of the property. The funds will go back to Forestry, Fire and State Lands to pay for assessors, who will evaluate properties within the WUI to decide whether homeowners are complying with the building code.
The code encourages homeowners to “harden” their properties against fires by installing metal roofs, replacing wooden fences with fire-resistant materials, clearing roadways of brush and debris and other preventative measures.
“One of the components of this is not just the wildfire threat or the fire itself, but the ember base,” Boyer said, referring to the ability of a fire to spread quickly under certain conditions.
H.B. 48 additionally encourages homeowners to undergo assessments conducted by a certified Forestry, Fire and State Lands employee. The lot assessment will provide “mitigation actions” for the property, and homeowners who complete those mitigation actions will pay a reduced fee in return.
The Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands said assessments are not necessarily required, but a homeowner who does not obtain one will automatically be charged the highest fee and “considered to be at the highest risk.”
Boyer said the state passed H.B. 48 to prevent insurance companies from refusing coverage to homeowners in high-risk areas. Insurance companies must now refer to the state’s WUI map to determine whether a property is in a high-risk area, and homeowners are able to have their homes classified as lower risk, or bumped off the map entirely, by complying with the home hardening measures.
“We were starting to see insurance companies not insuring in the county and significantly raising people’s rates,” Boyer said. “Part of House Bill 48 is to try to head that off, requiring insurance companies to primarily use our mapping to point out where the highest risk areas are. It’s also a way for us to say, ‘Look, we’ve been working on this, and we are continuing to work on it with our homeowners and property owners to have them reduce their risk.’ We’re trying to ensure that folks can still get home insurance and be able to afford it in this state, not just this county.”
He added that the move is good for local fire departments, too, because it encourages people to harden their homes, which has been difficult for officials to enforce without state oversight.
“We’ve only had a carrot, and there was no stick in the past to get people to do defensible things, like structure hardening,” Boyer said. “This puts a little bit of a stick in it because if you’re not (doing it), you’re going to be hit with a higher premium.”
The Kamas City Council indicated it plans to adopt the ordinance and WUI map at its next meeting. Information on the WUI legislation, including an FAQ and resources for homeowners, is available by visiting ffsl.utah.gov/wuirisk.
Homeowners can specifically check whether their property is considered high-risk by going to wildfirerisk.utah.gov and typing their address into the Utah Wildfire Risk Assessment portal.
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Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.