Commentary: Fund will help rebuild health of state’s forests

By Hilary Franz / For The Herald

I read with interest the guest column, “Rather than a fee to fight fires, thin the forests,” in the Dec. 8 Herald, which addressed the wildfire prevention and forest health proposal my agency, the Department of Natural Resources, put forward this month.

The columnist is right: We need to address forest health, including thinning and prescribed fire treatments in our forests. That’s why they are key components of the funding proposal that will be before lawmakers when the legislative session begins in January.

We can’t get ahead of the wildfire threat if we don’t proactively address our dying and diseased trees and the woody debris littering our forest floors. In Eastern Washington, we have more than 2 million acres of dead and dying forests that have lost their natural wildfire resistance.

But, year after year, lawmakers fail to prioritize funding for forest health treatments and wildfire prevention, leaving communities — rural and urban — at risk of larger, more devastating wildfires.

It’s time for a long-term solution that guarantees the resources we need to ensure our forest health efforts — including replanting more than one million acres that have burned — are properly funded, today and in the future.

The new Wildfire Prevention and Forest Health Account we are proposing will put boots on the ground to restore 1.25 million acres of forest to health, returning natural wildfire resistance and reducing fires. It will also fund the replanting of forests that have burned.

And it will build a 21st-century wildfire fighting force. Year one investments include 42 new firefighters, a modern helicopter to supplement our fleet of Vietnam-era Hueys, 15 fire engines, and training for volunteer firefighters throughout Washington.

With these resources, our firefighters will be able to get to fires quickly and keep them small, which prevents costly and dangerous megafires.

Our firefighters and scientists have given us a blueprint to tackle the wildfire crisis. Our state’s 10-Year Wildland Fire Protection Strategic Plan and 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan, both of which have been passed into statute by the Legislature, reflect that blueprint. But these plans are only as good as the funding to implement them.

The money for the state’s new Wildfire Prevention and Forest Health Account would come from a surcharge of a few cents on premiums for home and auto insurance policies.

It would cost the average household just over $1 each month.

In return, we would be able to raise roughly $63 million each year for proactive, proven and science-based strategies to reduce forest fuels, create healthier forests, secure communities and create stronger local economies.

We don’t make this request lightly, but it’s not just trees and brush that go up in wildfire smoke; it’s homes, cars and businesses, all of which we aim to protect with this new funding.

We understand this is a significant investment, but we pay that amount — and more — when we fail to adequately fund prevention and preparedness. Wildfire suppression costs in Washington have averaged $153 million per year over the past five years; and that doesn’t take into account public health costs or lost infrastructure, habitat, timber and agriculture. The scale of the problem is immense.

For example: One fire in 2018 — the Crescent Mountain Fire outside Twisp — cost more than $40 million to fight.

The funding system we’ve relied on for decades — putting most of our dollars into fighting wildfires instead of into preventing them — is the wrong approach, one that costs us more in the long run.

As Washingtonians, we don’t look at problems as too big to solve; we innovate and find solutions. We cannot simply stay the course because some believe that solving our wildfire crisis is too daunting, too complex.

It’s time for a new, practical approach.

Let’s act now to reclaim our summers from flames and smoke. Let’s establish dedicated funding before our next wildfire season and end the backward way we fight wildfire.

Hilary Franz is Washington state Commissioner of Public Lands and was elected in 2016 to lead the Department of Natural Resources, our state’s wildfire fighting force.