In the midst of our typical cool, wet winter, the threat of wildfire season seems a ways off, but the state Department of Natural Resources is hoping memories remain fresh of the summer’s Carlton Complex fire, the largest wildfire in state history, which burned 400 square miles and destroyed 300 homes in the Methow Valley in North Central Washington.
The DNR is encouraging the Legislature, which convenes in one week, to help prevent another fire like the Carlton Complex by spending $20 million during the next two years to increase thinning and other hazard reduction on forested lands, The News Tribune reported over the weekend.
About $7.5 million of that money would fund an existing DNR program that encourages private noncommercial landowners to thin their properties of smaller trees that become fuel in wildfires. Under the program, the state removes half of the small trees and brush, with the landowners committing to remove the other half. The state estimates with the funding it could more than double the amount of noncommercial thinning each year to 18 square miles.
The News Tribune talked with one Methow Valley homeowner whose home was not destroyed; she and her husband participated in the DNR’s thinning program. The fire passed through her property, but the thinning spared their home and kept the flames from feeding on brush and small trees that would have been kindling for larger trees on the property.
About $5 million would be used to thin 29,500 acres of state-managed forests. Another $2 million would pay for crews of military veterans to thin trees and clear brush around 1,500 homes. The thinning work can also discourage insect infections and keep forests healthy.
Two years ago, the DNR and its chief, Peter Goldmark, sought a similar $20 million for thinning and other preventive work; the Legislature provided $4 million.
If this Legislature were to budget a similar amount, it would leave both property owners and the state exposed to losses during the coming fire seasons, and at a time when we are seeing warmer and drier summers each year.
By early August, the Carlton Complex fire had cost more than $61 million to fight. That figure doesn’t include damage to private property. In late October, property owners filed 65 claims, ranging from $1,000 to $2.3 million, faulting the Department of Natural Resources for not controlling the fire.
Although allocating $20 million to thin forests, public and private, won’t stop all wildfires, the work has the potential to limit damage and keep fires from surpassing the Carlton fire in terms of firefighting costs, loss of property and even potential loss of life.
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