Representatives of all firefighting agencies in Utah were honored on the House floor Wednesday with the Concurrent Resolution on Utah Wildfires. They included state, federal, county and city professionals and volunteers. HCR 4 was brought by Democratic Representative Joel Briscoe of Salt Lake City. The 2012 was fire season is described in the resolution as the most devastating on record burning more than 413-thousand acres. Republican Representative Spencer Cox of Sanpete and Juab Counties, described being with a volunteer crew near the Wood Hollow fire after it had already burned 30-thousand acres in 24 hours.
”We watched as the wind blew the flames and smoke over a hundred feet in the air and really enveloped the crew and we weren’t sure that everybody was going to walk out of there…and…and they did and they saved approximately 40 homes that day,” says Cox.
Rep. Briscoe says 88 percent of the 15 hundred 28 fires were put out by volunteers while using small amounts of state resources.
