In consultation with federal officials and sundry fire agencies, Huntsman extended the ban on personal fireworks on state, federal and unincorporated lands - previously in effect west of I-15 - to the entire state. He also urged consumers to be cautious, encouraged municipal officials to strictly enforce fireworks regulations and ordered the Utah Highway Patrol to arrest the flow of illegal fireworks from Wyoming.

The ban was a partial triumph for acting on the obvious. Difficult to enforce, no doubt, but well worth trying. Still, the governor could have, and should have, done more.

Inexplicably, he stopped short of exercising his power to declare an emergency and ban consumer fireworks throughout the state. He allowed city residents to risk lives and property with home fireworks displays.

It's true, as a Huntsman spokeswoman pointed out, that his partial ban covered most of the urban-wildlands interface where fires are likely to spread. It's also true that vendors were already selling fireworks, plenty of residents had already purchased them, and many municipalities, while prohibited by state law from banning legal fireworks, had further limited the locations and times they could be used.

But in a wildland fire season that already has claimed three lives and blackened more than 87,000 acres, fire officials need all the help they can get. Huntsman and the Legislature should give it to them.

In the soggiest of years, fireworks are a hazard. They pollute the air, endanger children and damage homes. And in years like this, when drought, crushing heat and wind conspire to turn Utah, urban and rural, into a tinder box, they're an unacceptable risk.

If current weather conditions persist or worsen in the days leading up to Pioneer Day, the governor should issue an emergency order banning personal fireworks everywhere. And when the Legislature meets next year it should, in an act of true patriotism, put a stop to this recklessness and ban personal fireworks once and for all.