Lyndee Scott was making bookmarks with kids in the Wasatch County Library courtyard on Saturday morning as part of the library’s summer kickoff party when her 17-year-old daughter, Trinity, told her she’d seen a bottle with an attached note addressed to law enforcement close to a nearby bush.

“I looked over, and there were police there. I was like, ‘That’s really weird.’ I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then, more and more police started coming,” Lyndee said.

Lyndee and Trinity were volunteering with Kathy Carr, vice board chair of the Wasatch Community Foundation, which was a sponsor of the event. Carr said the nonprofit’s booth, right next to The Pretzel Connection’s, was about 20 feet away from the bottle. 

Carr noticed library director Juan Lee talking to the police officers. A few minutes later, library staff and police calmly instructed attendees to evacuate into the library, keeping away from the windows. Scott said they were inside the library for about an hour. 

During that time, the Heber City Police Department and Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office deployed a K-9 trained to sniff out explosives and ammunition. The K-9 gave a positive indication on the bottle. 

“I was able to see that, when the dog alerted, he alerted twice and then jumped up in the bush,” Lyndee said. “My daughter was saying, ‘Oh my gosh. Is this thing going to explode?’ It was crazy and nerve-wracking just waiting, wondering if we’re going to make it out.”

Carr said there were about 300 people at the event, many families with toddlers. 

Keeping the children entertained and blissfully unaware of the situation as they waited in the library was its own challenge.

“(Trinity) went and helped little kids look for books during (the lockdown) and then came back and was … getting updates,” Lyndee said.

Carr, meanwhile, spoke to some of the younger children about what role a K-9 plays in law enforcement and pointed out how “cool” it was to see one in action, protecting its community.

All the while, she was mentally preparing herself to, at a moment’s notice, push over tables in the library to use as barricades.

Carr said emergency drills she’d done in her past roles as a teacher and an organizer and accreditor of after school programs prepared her for that moment. 

“That mom side of me and that teacher side of me kicked in a little bit,” she said. “It’s just in my nature to make sure the kids are OK. That’s the No. 1. Make sure they’re calm and that this isn’t going to be traumatic for them.”

Police instructed patrons and staff to evacuate the library after the K-9 checked each car in the parking lot. At that time, police were also closing off 1200 South.

Police Chief Parker Sever said that one car was found with a legally obtained gun and ammunition in it but that it was unrelated to the incident.

Carr went home and waited for about two hours for an update about when she could return to the library to retrieve the belongings she’d left behind. 

The Heber Valley resident of four decades’ first assumption about the bottle was that it had been a prank because “it’s Heber,” but as she waited, she began to second guess herself.

“I just kept listening for sirens from my house,” Carr said.

During that time, a Salt Lake City-area bomb squad assisted the police department in disposing of the bottle using a bomb squad robot.

Sever said “nothing explosive” was found in the bottle.

The Police Department’s investigations team is actively working to determine the circumstances surrounding the incident. 

Sever said bomb threats are “not super common” in Heber City and that there have been two others, at Wasatch High School and the Heber Valley Hospital, during his nearly three years as police chief.

Many witnesses are still grappling with the aftermath of the incident.

“It makes me sad if this was, one, a targeted event, and two, if it was a prank. It’s not funny,” Lyndee said. “Heber is growing, and it’s getting crazier, but I never thought that we’d have to be evacuated and have the bomb squad up here.”

Unlike Lyndee, this was not the first emergency situation Carr had been present for.

A gas leak on Main Street in 1994 forced the evacuation of “a few hundred” people to Central Elementary School (now the Heber City Public Safety building), where Carr was running an after school program with about 25 kids.

“That actually caused me to have a lot of questions because I started asking people, ‘If there was a big emergency, where would everyone evacuate? Where are the blankets?’ Because I had no idea how long people were going to end up staying at the school. I think they were able to clear it up by maybe 8 o’clock at night,” she said. “The early ’90s, compared to now, we are so much more prepared. … We have way more officers now that are on duty.”

Both Carr and Lyndee complimented library staff and police officers for handling the situation calmly.

“This could have been a lot more hectic and a lot more dangerous. I mean, there could have been stampedes,” Lyndee said. “The library staff did awesome, helping us evacuate, helping us get the information we needed as updates became available. The police did an outstanding job.”

Carr is well aware that the bomb threat has likely left many of the families who came for the summer kickoff party with lasting trauma. She encouraged talking to a trusted friend, family member, mental health counselor or religious leader.

Carr’s advice to anyone who finds themself in an emergency situation is to grab their keys, phone and kids and immediately move to a secure area, calling the authorities only when it is safe to do so.

As for after the incident?

“Take your kids for ice cream and distract them, and just tell them that the police are doing their job and that sometimes things happen, and you’re going to be protected because you’re with your parents and you’re with a trusted adult,” she said. “Or Kathy Carr will help you because she will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

The post ‘Wondering if we’re going to make it out’: Heber City residents recount bomb threat at Wasatch County Library appeared first on Park Record.

The Wildfire Preparedness Fair, a collaborative event sponsored by Wasatch Back homeowners associations, will return this month bigger than ever — and organizers say it’s especially poignant this year. 

The event, scheduled for Saturday, April 25, at Ecker Hill Middle School, is hosted by 11 homeowner associations across Summit and Wasatch counties — up from seven last year.

“If I can pat ourselves on the back for a minute: We realized early that it really is a collective, community effort. It’s not just one HOA. We abut many others in our various communities, so it really is a collective effort. We’ve really doubled down on that notion for this year,” said Angie Kell, an organizer and Glenwild Homeowners Association member.

The event was held at Pinebrook Park last year, but with a better venue, organizers are planning a panel discussion to bring a variety of experts for a conversation.

“Last year, we just had some speakers kind of individually address their topics. This year, we’re doing a panel discussion that … I think is going to be incredible. So it’s a big step forward,” said organizer Pamela Nieroth.

Nieroth, who is part of the education and community outreach subcommittee of the wildfire committee for the Glenwild HOA, said last year’s fair was a chance to get their toes wet.

“We didn’t advertise it widely because we really weren’t sure how it was going to go, how many people we could accommodate,” said Nieroth. “We were so pleased with the results that, this year, we decided to really push the boundary a little bit more.”

A record low snowpack has heightened homeowners’ concerns about an active fire season in the Wasatch Back, especially as the community becomes more aware of the threat of wildfires. But recent legislation also makes the preparedness fair a relevant resource, said Pinebrook Fire Safety Committee Co-Chair Don Brown.

State lawmakers passed House Bill 48 last year in an attempt to mitigate wildfire risks in wildland urban interface areas, or WUIs: zones where human developments overlap open spaces relatively untouched by humans. In the 2026 legislative session, H.B. 41 extended the deadline to comply with last year’s law to Jan. 1, 2027.

The bulk of the legislation is directed toward homeowners, including a new annual fee between $20 and $100 for homeowners within a WUI, with the specific amount determined by the taxable square footage of the property.

The funds will go back to Utah Forestry, Fire and State Lands to pay for assessors, who will evaluate properties within the WUI to decide whether homeowners are complying with fire-resistant or “hardened” building requirements.

“I think House Bill 48, and subsequently House Bill 41, have brought an awareness that didn’t exist before. It’s good-intentioned legislation, but it’s going to create its own set of challenges for us to address,” Brown said.

And it’s introduced a lot of confusion, Nieroth said, which is why a big chunk of this year’s fair will focus on clarifying the requirements for the Wasatch Back.

“I think a lot of homeowners have questions about it, and we see this as an opportunity to hear directly from the folks who are knowledgeable: ‘Yes, you’ll need to do this. No, you won’t need to do that. How is the map going to work?’” Nieroth said. “It’s complicated, and there are lots of points of view, and we’d like people to have accurate information.”

Brown said his conversation with panelists should get into the weeds of the legislation. Six experts are invited to the discussion, including Paul Borrup, president of SentryWest Insurance Services; Peter Emery, fire chief of the Park City Fire District; Fielding Norton, executive director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy; Taiga Rohrer of Utah Forestry, Fire and State Lands; David Telian of Alpine Forestry; and J. Bradley Washa of Utah State University.

Audience questions will also give attendees the chance to hear directly from industry professionals, and many will be available before and after the discussion for the tabling portion of the event.

Twenty groups will be set up in the lobby of Ecker Hill and ready to share information on home-hardening options or specific services. 

Alpine Forestry, Sav-A-Tree, Apex Fire Protection, SentryWest Insurance Services, Biochar Collective, Summit County Emergency Management, Summit County Open Lands, Utah Open Lands, the Rowland Hall Climate Studies Program and the Wildfire Defense Mesh initiative are some participating organizations.

Kell said the goal is to provide local, readily available solutions for homeowners.

“Let’s say, what are five things that you can do to harden your home?” Kell said. “So we provide the what, and we’re going to provide the who, who can help you do that.”

She also said this year’s fair is intentionally designed to get younger kids involved, from a Girl Scouts-hosted kids station with wildfire-related coloring pages to a demonstration that gives kids the chance to use biochar as chalk. Students from the climate studies program at Rowland Hall will also present information from a school project during the event.

“We made a deliberate effort to cross the generational gap and start educating kids as to wildfire awareness,” she said, “as well as people who are actually doing the work.” 

The event will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and free bagels and cream cheese donated by The Bagel Den will be available in the morning. La Lupe and Chili Spot food trucks will also be on site for lunch. More details can be found on their website posting.

Kell said anyone is welcome to swing by — not just homeowners in participating neighborhoods — because preparedness is a whole community effort. It may sound obvious, but fire doesn’t care about property limits. 

“Everyone recognizes Round Valley is powder already. It’s dirt. The dirt is super dry. And so I think the onus is on us with the wildfire fair to bridge that gap: OK, so what does that mean for you as a homeowner as we look toward wildfire season? And I think that’s really where the rubber meets the road,” Kell said.

It’s not a panic, but a call to action, Brown added. 

“It’s not doom and gloom. It’s just another summer, but we are now paying attention,” he said. “And with this knowledge, this information, we can get ahead of the greater risk later by doing reasonable things now.”

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