For central Utah residents, it might feel like a weather forecast straight out of the Bible.

First came the massive wildfires. Now, town and county officials are preparing for the next expected disaster: major flooding.

That’s anticipated for the areas surrounding both the Cottonwood Fire — a 96,300-acre blaze still burning in Beaver County — and the Juab County communities in the footprint of the now-extinguished Iron and Cherry Fires, which together burned more than 70,000 acres.

“The outlook is not very positive,” said Phil Dennison, a professor at the University of Utah who studies wildfires. “You could have flash floods; you could have mudslides.”

Summer monsoonal storms are currently predicted to downpour over recently scorched areas early this week, according to the National Weather Service.

Burn scars leave those areas more susceptible to flooding because there’s no vegetation left and the singed soil doesn’t soak in water as easily. Monsoon rains also hit fast and heavy, which is the prime driver of flash floods.

Towns in Juab that were previously evacuated — some twice — because of last month’s wildfires spent last week filling sandbags. Eureka residents, in particular, are at heightened risk because of the topography of the area, which sits between two mountain peaks. That means water runoff will be aimed downhill, into town.

Glen Merrill, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office, said the exact path of the monsoon storms isn’t known just yet. But anywhere there’s a burn scar is inherently more vulnerable to flooding.

That heightened risk remains for three to five years after a fire, Merrill said, because that’s how long it takes for the scar to start healing and plants to root again.

Fire officials are still determining where flooding may be worst, Merrill said. That depends on how severely the soil was burned and how hot the fire raged.

“Every burn scar is different,” he added.

Monsoonal thunderstorms, added Dennison at the U., also typically feature lightning, which brings the risk of another fire sparking, too.

Residents of Beaver, Utah, are similarly preparing for flooding. Beaver City Mayor Matt Robinson said during a community meeting at the end of June that even as the Cottonwood Fire raged, attention had already “turned to flood mitigation.”

“This is a high priority,” he said.

The city and county have requested help from the state in supplying equipment and supplies to proactively prepare for flooding.

Les Whitney, the emergency management director for Beaver County, said it’s not a matter of if floods will come, but when.

“It will flood, unfortunately,” he said during the community meeting.

Merrill said it’s good communities are taking steps now, ahead of the storms.