10-Year Plan To Mitigate WA Wildfires Released

OLYMPIA, WA -Following a record-breaking number of wildfires across the state in 2018, Washington's Commissioner of Public Lands worked with nearly 1,000 community and federal agency members to develop a 10-year strategic plan to help residents and emergency responders prepare for and manage the rapidly worsening threat of local wildfire devastation.

According to the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), more than 440,000 acres burned across Washington due to more than 1,850 individual wildfires in 2018. While the number of fires was a record high, the actual acreage burned was kept lower than in 2014 or 2015 thanks to the tremendous effort of firefighters on the ground.

Despite firefighters' best efforts to keep the wildfires contained, however, Washington still saw several days where smoke blanketed the state from Spokane to Seattle, creating dangerous air quality conditions that measured among the worst on the planet.

State officials know wildfires won't be prevented altogether regardless of whatever new policy is created. Yet they do believe the damage caused by wildfires could be mitigated if certain steps are taken in advance to bolster firefighters numbers, invest in equipment and training, and revise current forestry management practices to more accurately address the latest climate changes in Washington.

"Wildfire fire is not an eastside or westside problem. It is not an urban or rural problem. Wildfire is a problem for all of Washington," Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz said in a statement. "That is why we developed an 'all lands, all hands' approach; one that calls for urgent, transformative change in how our state confronts wildfire.

"If our firefighters can come together from different walks of life and unite for the common good of Washington, surely we can do the same and give them the support and training they need."

Laying out 40 specific strategies that will be used to accomplish four strategic goals, Washington's Wildland Fire Protection 10-Year Strategic Plan offers a blueprint for preparing the state for increasingly harsher weather patterns.

Adding more personnel to DNR firefighting teams, establishing a wildland fire training academy, increasing prescribed burns, expanding landowner assistance programs, and improving outreach to Washington communities are just a few of the 40 strategies included in the new plan.

Ultimately, the new plan "builds on decades of partner-led work and addresses the critical challenges, risks, and opportunities associated with preparing for, responding to, and recovering from wildland fires in Washington," Franz said. "The Plan, a companion to the 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan for Eastern Washington, looks comprehensively at wildland fire issues across Washington through the lens of how fire can best be safely managed to both reduce losses and costs and to achieve resilient and healthy ecosystems and communities. It offers solutions to emergent needs and issues and expected future conditions."

"We can't stop fires from occurring, but we can stop doing the same things we've always done in dealing with them, Chief Dave LaFave of Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue and the Washington Fire Chiefs Association said in a statement. "The Wildland Fire Protection Strategy truly is a blueprint for success to create positive change in our forests and wildland urban-interface. This strategy gives us a balance and chance to make a difference."

Click here to check out the whole plan, or here to see a summary.

And for more information on the DNR, visit DNR.WA.gov.

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Image via Washington Department of Natural Resources/@waDNR_fire