Utah's New Wildfire Law: What HB 48 and the WUI Code Mean for Park City Homeowners

The rules changed on January 1, and most homeowners haven’t noticed yet

For the last two decades, defensible space in Utah has been essentially voluntary for existing homes. You were encouraged to thin your fuels. Your fire district would come talk to your HOA about it. Your insurance carrier might send a letter. But unless you were pulling a building permit, nobody was going to require anything of you.

That era ended this year. Utah’s House Bill 48 (Wildland Urban Interface Modifications) took effect January 1, 2026, and it changes the arrangement in four specific ways: it maps a new statewide high-risk WUI boundary, it authorizes lot-level risk assessments, it introduces risk-based fees for property owners inside that boundary, and it sets defensible space and home-hardening expectations that come with those assessments.

The same law required every Utah city and county to formally adopt and enforce a WUI code by that same January 1, 2026 date in order to stay eligible for state wildfire cost-sharing.

If you own property in Park City, Heber, Midway, Kamas, Oakley, or anywhere in the wooded parts of Summit and Wasatch County, this is the most consequential change to mountain property obligations in years — and it has a direct line to your insurance premium. Here’s what it actually says, what it means for your lot, and what to do about it this fall.

What HB 48 actually does

Utah’s Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands (FFSL) describes HB 48 as having four components. It’s worth understanding them separately, because they land on homeowners at different times and in different ways.

1. A new statewide high-risk WUI boundary

The state built a new high-risk boundary map that considers proximity to vegetation, wildfire likelihood and intensity, ember travel risk, and the distance between structures. That last factor matters more than people expect — dense subdivisions where houses are close together can score as higher risk partly because structure-to-structure ignition is its own hazard, separate from the trees.

The map became viewable on the state’s UWRAP portal starting January 1, 2026. Checking whether your parcel falls inside the high-risk boundary is the single first thing to do after reading this article, because everything else in HB 48 follows from that determination.

2. Lot-level triage assessments

Properties inside the boundary can be assessed at the lot level — a “triage” evaluation of how defensible the structure actually is. This looks at the things a fire crew would look at if they had to decide, under pressure, whether your house was defensible or whether they should move on to the next one: clearance around the structure, roof and vent construction, vegetation continuity, driveway access, and water availability.

Homeowners may opt out of the assessment. But opting out places you in the highest fee tier, which makes it a false economy for most properties. You can also hire a certified private assessor rather than waiting on the state queue.

3. Risk-based fees

This is the part that has gotten the least local coverage and will generate the most surprise. Property owners inside the high-risk boundary are subject to fees, phased in like this:

• 2026–2027: flat fees based on the square footage of the structure.
• 2028 onward: fees determined by the triage assessment result combined withbuilding size — meaning a well-mitigated property pays less than a neglected one of the same size.

The practical implication is straightforward: starting in 2028, defensible space work stops being purely a safety decision and starts being a recurring line item on your cost of ownership. Work you do in 2026 and 2027 shows up in the assessment that sets your fee tier.

4. Defensible space and home-hardening requirements

Assessed properties are expected to complete mitigation actions — create defensible space around structures and harden the building itself with fire-resistant materials. The specifics follow the Utah WUI Code adopted by your local jurisdiction, which is where Park City’s own long-standing rules come in (below).

The insurance angle — this is the part that will hit first

HB 48 also reaches into the insurance market, and for most homeowners this will be the most financially visible effect long before any state fee arrives.

The law requires insurers to use the new state WUI boundary, and to disclose premium increases that exceed 20% as well as coverage discontinuations. Triage assessment data is shared with both insurers and homeowners.

Read that again, because the implication is significant: the condition of your defensible space is becoming a documented, shared data point that your carrier can see. Utah’s wildfire insurance market has already tightened considerably in recent years, and non-renewals in high-risk mountain zip codes are no longer rare. A property with a good triage result and documented mitigation is in a materially different negotiating position than one without.

If you’re working through carrier questions, our guide to how homeowners insurance handles tree removal and wildfire exposure covers the coverage mechanics, defensible-space conditions some carriers now attach to policies, and the documentation habits that protect you at renewal.

Park City’s own WUI code — already in force since 2020

Park City did not wait for the state. The city adopted an amended version of Utah’s WUI code back in June 2020, built on the Wildland Urban Interface Code with Utah state amendments. It lives in Municipal Code Section 11-21-1, and it has been shaping construction on the hill for years.

Under Park City’s code, landscape and home-hardening plans are reviewed as part of the building permit process. Compliance is triggered by:

• All new construction
• Additions to existing structures
• Remodels valued over $50,000

That $50,000 threshold catches far more projects than homeowners expect. A kitchen and bath remodel on a Park City property clears it easily. If you are planning any significant work on a wooded lot, assume WUI review is part of your permit path and budget the vegetation work into the project rather than discovering it at plan review.

Park City publishes several resources for this, including a WUI Worksheet, a Wildland Urban Interface Code Guide, a voluntary home hardening and defensible space list, and a voluntary approved plantings list. All are available through the city’s Building Department WUI page. To confirm whether a specific parcel falls inside the city’s WUI boundary, use the city boundary map or call the Building Department at 435-615-5101.

What defensible space actually requires

The Utah WUI Code organizes defensible space into three ignition zones measured outward from the structure. The distances are consistent across Utah jurisdictions; the fine print on approved species and enforcement varies locally.

Immediate zone — 0 to 5 feet

The strictest zone, and the one most often ignored. All dead and dying vegetation must be removed within five feet of the structure, and remaining plantings must come from the approved list. This is the ember-catchment zone: the bark mulch against your foundation, the juniper under the window, the woodpile on the deck, and the dead needles in the gutter are the realistic ignition sources in most structure losses — not a wall of flame arriving from the forest.

Trees must also be trimmed to stand no closer than ten feet from an active wood-burning chimney.

Intermediate zone — 5 to 30 feet

Vegetation must be on the approved list. Trees are permitted, but the horizontal distance between adjacent tree crowns — and between tree crowns and structures, overhead electrical lines, or unmodified fuel — must be at least ten feet.

That crown-spacing rule is what drives most of the actual chainsaw work on a Wasatch lot. Dense same-age conifer stands rarely have ten feet of separation anywhere, which means selective thinning rather than clearing. Which trees to keep is a real decision with consequences — our Utah tree species field guide walks through which species are worth retaining (mature Douglas-fir and ponderosa are far more fire-tolerant than the lodgepole around them) and which are liabilities close to a house (Rocky Mountain juniper is among the most flammable landscape plants in North America).

Extended zone — 30 to 100 feet, or the property boundary

Native vegetation must be managed and dense brush removed to slow fire spread. This is thinning and ladder-fuel work rather than clearing — you are breaking up fuel continuity, both horizontally across the ground and vertically from the surface into the canopy.

Gambel oak thickets are the recurring problem here on the Wasatch Back. They are dense, they accumulate dead material inside the stand, and they resprout vigorously from the root system after cutting, which means oak management is a recurring service rather than a one-time job. Our hazardous fuel guide covers the specific reduction work, and the zone-by-zone fire mitigation guide goes deeper on sequencing the work across a full property.

The free chipping program most residents don’t use

Here is genuinely useful news that costs you nothing: the Park City Fire District runs a free wood chipping programfor residents inside district boundaries, and that includes a number of Summit County neighborhoods outside city limits — Jeremy Ranch, Promontory, and Trailside among them. Summit Fire & EMS District runs a comparable free program for its own service area.

The rules are specific, and piles get skipped for not following them:

• Piles no larger than 8 feet long by 6 feet tall by 8 feet wide.
• Log butts facing outward, all in the same direction — this is the one people get wrong most often.
• Placed within 5 feet of a city or county street curb.
• No building materials, wire, garbage, or dirt mixed into the pile.
• Each pile needs its own registration, and the district chips one pile per address per pass.

Registration runs through roughly the beginning of September and the program itself through the end of September, so if you are reading this in early fall, you are at the edge of the window. Contact the district at chipping@pcfd.org or 435-940-2484.

The honest limitation: a free district pass handles curbside slash piles from work you have already done. It does not do the cutting, it will not reach material from the back of a five-acre lot, and one pile per address per pass is a real constraint on a property with a serious fuel problem. For that scale of work, on-site processing is the practical answer — our on-site brush chipping guide covers how mobile chipping works and why it beats hauling. But if your mitigation is small and curbside, use the free program. It is good, it is real, and it is underused.

What to do this fall

A practical sequence for a Wasatch Back property owner working through this for the first time:

• Determine your WUI status.Check the state high-risk boundary on the UWRAP portal, and separately confirm your status under your local jurisdiction’s map. These are two different determinations and both matter.
• Read your declarations page. Check whether your carrier already attaches defensible-space conditions to your policy. Many Utah mountain policies now do.
• Get a written assessment.Whether through the state triage process, a certified private assessor, or an ISA-certified arborist walkthrough, get your property’s current state documented on paper with photographs. Documentation is what protects you in a fee dispute, an insurance renewal, and a claim.
• Start in the 0–5 foot zone. It is the cheapest work on the list, requires no heavy equipment, and does more for structure survival than anything else you can do.
• Plan the crown-spacing work for next summer. Selective conifer thinning is a summer job on the Wasatch Back and books out weeks ahead in peak season. Getting a plan and a quote in the fall puts you on the calendar early.
• If you are remodeling, budget the WUI work now. Anything over $50,000 in Park City pulls vegetation and home-hardening review into the permit.

Where to verify

Regulatory detail changes, thresholds get amended, and enforcement practice evolves — especially in the first years of a new state law. Go to the primary sources rather than relying on any summary, including this one:

• Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands — HB 48 FAQ for the state program, the high-risk map, assessments, and fees.
• Park City Building Department — WUI Code page for the city worksheet, code guide, approved plantings list, and boundary map. Building Department: 435-615-5101.
• Your own HOA covenants, which may impose separate and sometimes stricter requirements on removals — and which cannot override municipal ordinance where the two conflict.

How Canyon Cutters fits in

Defensible space work is the core of what we do. We are an ISA-informed crew working the Wasatch Back full time, and the crown-spacing, ladder-fuel, and zone-one work described above is the same work we have been doing on Park City and Heber properties for years — now with a regulatory framework and a fee structure attached to it.

Our fire mitigation service covers assessment through execution, and the on-site chipping side means the slash gets processed where it falls instead of hauled. For larger acreage, our land management program sequences mitigation across multiple seasons so the cost lands gradually rather than all at once.

If you want your property walked and put on paper before the next assessment cycle, reach out through our contact page or call (201) 960-8275. The first visit is free, the assessment comes in writing, and we will tell you plainly which items are code-driven and which are optional.

This article is general educational information for Wasatch Back property owners and is not legal advice or an official interpretation of any statute or ordinance. Requirements, thresholds, fees, and boundaries are set and amended by the State of Utah and by individual jurisdictions — verify your specific obligations with Utah FFSL and with your city or county building department before making decisions.