Above Normal Wildfire Risk Predicted in Washington

May 22—CLE ELUM RIDGE, Kittitas County — Trainee Cat Robinson heaved a hose along the containment line as flames climbed a nearby ponderosa pine. Capt. Beau Foster, with Kittitas Fire District 6, coached her as she knocked down the flames before they got into the canopy.

The two were working this controlled burn during a training this month, one piece of statewide efforts to restore ecosystems and prepare for wildfire season.

The summer is anticipated to bring above-normal fire risk, beginning in June, in the more arid grass- and shrublands and ponderosa pine forests of Central and Eastern Washington, and by July, creeping into wetter Western Washington.

The state was at about 86% of normal snowpack on April 1, while some areas within the central and northern Cascades didn't reach 70% of normal. April 1 is considered the peak before spring melt begins. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center has forecast above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation through July.

These conditions set up the state for a solidly above-average wildfire season, said Matt Dehr, lead wildfire meteorologist with the state Department of Natural Resources. It will likely be an active fire season, he said, but not record-setting like what the state saw in 2015.

The season will likely peak in late July through August. For the west side, where there is typically less fire, an above-average year could just mean a couple of large fires.

Wildfire outlook

Sources: Esri, National Interagency Fire Center, Washington State Department of Natural Resources (Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)

DNR officials say the agency is staffed for the upcoming season, but it's unclear where federal emergency response capacity stands. The Trump administration fired hundreds of workers trained to aid firefighting crews, according to reporting by ProPublica.

Trump officials have been pulling back funds intended to help communities prepare for the arrival of fire and other disasters and declining requests for disaster relief, including in Washington.

Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove spoke to community members about the upcoming season at a meeting last month in Leavenworth, Chelan County.

"As I go into my first wildfire season as a new lands commissioner, I think it promises to be an unusually complicated one," Upthegrove said. "I think that's because now more than ever, it really is up to us."

At the controlled burn on Cle Elum Ridge, participants in a prescribed fire academy hosted by The Nature Conservancy and Upper Kittitas Fuels Crew released flaming drops of diesel and gasoline. Snowberry and grasses squealed in the heat. Dense smoke rose through the crowns of the ponderosas.

"Put a drop out over there — see that jackpot?" said Glenn Rogers, a Gig Harbor wildland and structure firefighter, to the trainees holding drip torches, referring to ready-to-burn vegetation. "Just one drop."

Nearly 40 people from the Northwest and Canada, including career firefighters, community prescribed-burn association members and others who work in ecosystem restoration or emergency response participated in the four-day training — with classroom and hands-on education in controlled burns and wildfire suppression.

Mark Charlton, The Nature Conservancy's prescribed fire specialist and a burn boss for the training, said he decided to make the pivot from full-time wildland firefighting to prescribed burning and fire mitigation after the 2017 Jolly Mountain fire arrived near Cle Elum and he could see the smoke column from his front door.

One of the biggest barriers to putting more fire back on the land is having enough trained people to lead the work. With funding from the state, The Nature Conservancy has been among the groups hosting training to expand the practice.

The state is aiming to intentionally burn 100,000 acres across all lands each year — up from an average of roughly 30,000 acres burned per year. The state is currently planning 49 burns covering over 18,000 acres of state lands over the next handful of years.

On the east side of the state, landscapes that had been shaped by Indigenous burning practices turned fire-prone with westward expansion, non-Native settlement and Native American removal policies, said Cody Desautel, executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

On the west side, droughts and extreme heat over the past decade have contributed to stressed or dying trees that make areas more vulnerable to fire.

There likely won't be a rip-roaring start to fire season in June, especially west of the Cascade crest, said Dehr, the state's lead wildfire meteorologist, thanks to the recent cool, wet weather.

The east slopes from about Lake Chelan south to Interstate 90 got poor precipitation this winter and have been missing out on the recent rains. Those areas are likely to stay dry and may see the first large fires of the season as early as June.

The recent rains will only provide a brief buffer.

Readings at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport show about 7 inches below normal rainfall since the water year began in October.

The last month has been dry across the state, with precipitation across Eastern Washington at less than half of normal, layered on top of several years of depleted snowpack. This has left some streams running low, soils without a reserve and trees stressed.

The state has 120 staffed engines, eight 20-person crews, four 6-to-10 person hand crews, and 18 crews of incarcerated people who will be available to help with firefighting and other duties at camps. The state also has heavy equipment, including 16 dozers, four excavators and 28 aircraft with the ability to increase capacity during peak season more than 40.

"As we look across August with all of Washington, all of Oregon, most of Idaho, all of Western Montana, in that above average (fire potential), that whole region is looking at a hotter, drier summer that could result in more fires that require incident management teams to be deployed," Dehr said, referring to the teams made up of federal, state and local personnel who manage responses to large fires.

"What is the availability of incident management teams going to look like this summer with some of the changes to the federal workforce?" he continued. "I don't even have the answer for that right now, and that's something that we're concerned about as we're headed toward summer."

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