Rich County commissioners adopt wildfire interface map, OK asphalt plant and declare drought emergency

Rich County commissioners on Monday moved to adopt a wildland-urban interface map required by recent state legislation and signed a cooperative agreement with the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, officials said.

The commission accepted the map and the cooperative agreement after a presentation by Travis Saab, Rich County fire warden, who said the draft map uses roads, irrigation boundaries and topography to identify higher-risk areas. "If there's sagebrush that's standing more than a couple feet tall, it pretty much bumps it into" a higher-risk category, Saab told commissioners, noting the state code changes and a 2027 update to the model WUI standard.

Why it matters: The WUI map sets where the county may enforce WUI code and triggers related steps the legislature requires — adopting a local ordinance, signing a cooperative agreement and completing an interface agreement that determines who performs high-risk structure assessments. Saab and county attorney Ben Willoughby told the commission the county can edit the map later if property owners petition; several commissioners raised concerns…