The state Legislature is giving local officials more time to implement a wildfire preparedness law that originally went into effect in January after municipalities and counties across the state struggled with the legislation.
State lawmakers passed House Bill 48 last year in 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, or open spaces relatively untouched by humans.
However, the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, which was responsible for publishing an updated statewide map of “high-risk WUIs,” is still in the midst of creating the program despite the law including multiple deadlines for municipalities and county governments at the local level.
As a result, some cities and counties across Utah have technically been out of compliance because local officials didn’t have the information they needed from the state to follow the law.
“It’s been difficult for us to know how to implement it because there hasn’t been a lot of information coming out from the state agency who’s regulating it,” said Summit County Deputy Manager Janna Young. “They haven’t even issued their rates yet, so we’re very happy to get another year to work on this.”
Young told the Summit County Council on Wednesday that H.B. 41, which has passed in both chambers and is now headed to the governor’s desk, extends the deadline to comply with last year’s law to Jan. 1, 2027.
The wildfire preparedness legislation requires city governments to approve an ordinance adopting specific building codes for new developments in WUIs. 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.
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.
The bulk of the law is directed toward homeowners, though, not city officials.
It 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.
H.B. 48 also incentivizes 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.”
Summit County Fire Warden Bryce Boyer previously said the state passed H.B. 48 to prevent insurance companies from refusing coverage to homeowners in high-risk areas. Insurance companies instead need to 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 in a meeting with the Kamas City Council in January. “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.”
Boyer said it was a good move for local fire departments, too, because it’s been difficult for local officials to enforce home hardening measures 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 structuring hardening,” he 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.”
Homeowners can 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.
Related Stories
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.