SALT LAKE CITY — FOX 13 News has learned that Governor Spencer Cox is exploring an executive order that could give Utah cities and towns more power to ban fireworks in the face of extreme wildfire danger.
Sources on Utah's Capitol Hill said the governor is looking at any legal options to empower communities to impose more restrictions as they worry about wildfires. Under Utah law, the governor cannot enact an all-out ban, although Cox has said in the past he wishes he could. Cities are also blocked from enacting total bans on igniting personal fireworks, except for communities that are entirely in a wildland urban interface — meaning they are at the highest risk of fire danger.
Some communities have gotten creative by designating a single area as a place where people can set off personal fireworks, while others have expanded their restricted zones. But mayors whom FOX 13 News has spoken with have turned to the legislature, frustrated by the laws they passed and asking for the ability to enact bans in extreme situations like this year.
"I think that there should be flexibility in the law that when there's extreme conditions like this, we ought to be able to say this is an emergency, yeah, we need to do this now," Draper Mayor Troy Walker said Thursday.
Walker said some lawmakers he has spoken with are sympathetic and willing to address it, but others have told him "freedoms are being restricted."
Cox says 'no end in sight' as Cottonwood Fire rages in central Utah:
Moab has issued an emergency declaration to ban fireworks within the entire city limits.
"It's a little creative, I think. It was a way for us to really come up with some legislative backing to allow us to do that. We just really believe that fire is a huge issue," Moab Mayor Joette Langianese told FOX 13 News on Thursday. "We've had two fires that burned structures in town because of fireworks. We've had three fires up on our mountain in the last several years. So because of the danger, we just felt we had to come up with something in the emergency declaration allowed us to do that."
Utah is already experiencing several catastrophic wildfires that have forced entire communities to evacuate and destroyed property. The largest is the Cottonwood Fire in Beaver County, which is currently more than 70,000 acres in size. Fireworks are viewed as another threat because of the drought and extreme fire weather conditions.
FOX 13 News is told Gov. Cox has been meeting with legal counsel to explore his options related to an executive order. The governor's office was expected to hold a news conference on Thursday afternoon.
Stay with fox13now.com and FOX 13 News for the latest on this breaking news story.
