SALT LAKE CITY — Less than 24 hours after flames threatened homes near Ensign Peak, many Salt Lake City residents were already thinking about the next wildfire.
For Dr. Brent James, the Sandhurst Fire came closer than any he had seen before. “This is the biggest one, and it actually wrapped around our house,” James said.
The fire burned up to the buffer zone behind his home, singed vegetation near his property and prompted firefighters to use water from his backyard pool while battling the flames.
James has lived near the foothills for nearly 15 years and said he has experienced four fires during that time. What concerns him most is that all four have occurred within the last three years.
The close call has already changed his plans. “I’ll just get a bigger buffer zone and knock it back,” he said, referring to vegetation behind his property that could fuel future fires.
On Thursday night, residents gathered at a wildfire preparedness town hall hosted by Salt Lake County Emergency Management. The event, planned before Wednesday’s fire, took on added urgency following the Sandhurst Fire.
Officials encouraged homeowners to create defensible space around their homes by removing combustible vegetation, cleaning gutters and reducing fire hazards near structures. “A lot of these residents are coming down. They’ve had a fire near their home and so they want to learn more about how to harden their home, how to create a defensible space,” said Tina Brown, public information officer for Salt Lake County Emergency Management.
For James, the lessons discussed at the meeting were no longer theoretical. “Given I don’t expect that to change, all that I can do is mitigate,” he said.
No homes were destroyed in the Sandhurst Fire, but for residents who watched flames move toward their neighborhoods, the focus has already shifted from what happened this week to how they can prepare for the next one.
