2020 has been a hot and dry wildfire season for Utah. The state has reached nearly 1,000 wildfire starts in Utah so far according to Utah’s Forestry, Fire and State Lands. Over the past week, there has been an alarming 73 fire starts in Utah.
712 of this years 951 wildfires have been human caused. In 2018, there were only 510 human caused fires at this point in the year and in 2019, only 379 fires were human caused at this point.
There are currently several fires burning across the state right now including the Upper Provo Wildfire, Richard Mountain Fire, and the Hollow Fire. Earlier in the season, there were also two wildfires that caused thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes in Lehi and Saratoga Springs.
With wildfires still heating up Utah, UTOPIA Fiber, along with two BYU engineering students, created a new early wildfire detection tool that could save communities thousands of dollars and even save lives.