With a relatively slow fire season, state and federal agencies have joined together to clear fire fuels from around communities that increasingly encroach on southwestern Utah's open spaces.

As part of the effort, Color Country Interagency Fire Center has used a piece of equipment called a bullhog to help clear trees while leaving wanted plants such as sagebrush and cliff rose, which are important winter forage for wildlife.

The Cedar City-based Color Country office is a consortium of state, federal and community fire agencies responsible for wildland fires in five counties in southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona.

It's a rugged area where cheatgrass, pinyon, juniper and evergreen trees combine with high summer temperatures and low humidity to make one of Utah's ripest areas for wildland fires.

But unlike last year, when the Milford Flat fire scorched 360,000 acres in Utah's largest wildland fire ever, this year the region saw its slowest fire season since 2001.

"Statistically, it's been a normal fire season," said Paul Briggs, a fuels program manager for the federal Bureau of Land Management. "It's been the six [previous] seasons that were huge."

So far this year, 330 fires have charred 6,390 acres, which seems small compared with last year, when 182,625 acres burned, many of them part of the Milford Flat fire that also burned in the neighboring Richfield Interagency Fire Center that encompasses parts of central Utah.

Briggs attributes the relief to a drier-than-normal April, combined with cooler-than-average spring temperatures.

The lack of fires, compared to the early part of the decade, has allowed the agency to work on reducing the source of fires around communities.

The latest effort near Enterprise is designed to build a fire break between the surrounding forest and the 1,500-resident community that was partially evacuated in 2004 when a 35,000-acre fire threatened it.

Nick Howell, an agency fire-management specialist, said there are 43 projects totaling $5 million in the Color Country area planned through 2009. The costs are divided evenly between the state of Utah and the federal government.

When not clearing areas by hand using chain saws and axes, the BLM uses its bullhog.

With 48 carbide teeth protruding from a rotating cutting head, the machine reduces mature juniper trees to wood chips in seconds.

Plans for the Enterprise project include clearing 425 acres contiguous to a similar treatment to the south at Dixie National Forest.

Howell said after the trees are shredded, the area is treated with native and fire-resistant plant seeds.

Officials say it's a lot cheaper to reduce fuel instead of fighting a large fire at the daily cost of $1 million.

Briggs said he doesn't miss the busy fire season.

"Just from a safety point," he said.

During the Milford Flat fire, Briggs said firefighters worked seven days a week with little rest from the flames and smoke.

"I never saw my staff without bloodshot eyes," Briggs said.

Mike Melton, area fire-management officer with the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands, also a member of Color Country, is surprised by this year's fire season.

"What fire season?" he joked last week in his Cedar City office. "We caught a great break this year."

He said only 94 acres of state and private land burned this year so far in Color Country's area.

"We can fight that in a half-hour," joked Melton.

The slow season has allowed state fire officials to work with local private property owners and educate them about clearing fuels from their structures.

They are also helping communities compile fire plans, including how to evacuate should the need arise.

Melton said the main objective when creating a fire break around a home is to remove fuels that act as a ladder for a fire.

"You want to bring it [fire] to the ground," he said. "We're not asking people to clear-cut, but to reduce fuel continuity."

John Schmidt, the wildland urban interface coordinator with the state office, said officials are working in 10 focus areas in Color Country containing 109 subdivisions with mitigating fire danger around their homes and communities.

He said there are grants available to some communities wanting to develop fire plans.

Melton said the public is increasingly aware of fire safety and taking a role in reducing fuels, but still there are some not as concerned.

"They think it's important generally when there's smoke in the air, but less when there's not smoke in the air," he said. "Some think it will not happen to them, or that insurance will take care of it. But we will not trade lives for homes."

mhavnes@sltrib.com

The cost of fighting fire

* 2001: $995,000

* 2002: $927,000

* 2003: $1,544,000

* 2004: $2,043,000

* 2005: $6,175,000

* 2006: $5,712,000

* 2007: $4,359,000

* 2008: $2,694,000

Source: Bureau of Land Management