Summer wildland fire threats Fire District 13 focus

Hot, dry conditions forecast through the summer is a troubling omen, Skagit County Fire District 13 Chief Wood Weiss cautioned last Friday.

“It looks like it will be a busy year for wildland fires,” Weiss told fire district commissioners during their July 9 monthly meeting, a hybrid in-person session also accessible remotely via the Zoom teleconferencing platform.

Weiss noted that district firefighters snuffed a small wildland fire over the holiday weekend that may have been fireworks related.

“It was climbing into the woods,” Weiss said, “but we shut it down and then (the state) DNR (Department of Natural Resources) took over.”

Commissioner John Doyle knew of the incident. “I smelled that fire on the Fourth and couldn’t find it,” said Doyle, a Snee-Oosh area resident who, as Weiss had, logged into the meeting remotely. “You guys already had it buttoned up.”

Weiss said district firefighters always anticipate plenty of work on July 4. This year was no exception.

“We didn’t have a million beach fires,” he said, “but we had some hard-working hours.”

District firefighters also responded last Thursday morning to a smoldering fire just off the Swinomish Channel shoreline north of La Conner Marina. La Conner Hook & Ladder provided the initial response when dispatched to what was described as a brush fire near North Pearle Jensen Way.

“We called District 13 when we discovered it was in their area,” said La Conner Fire Chief Aaron Reinstra afterward.

The threat was quickly contained and the fire extinguished.

La Conner residents Barbara Brunisholz and Mary Wohleb, a town councilmember, were walking on the dike off Pearle Jensen Way when they saw Pam Church trying to put out a grass fire with sand from the nearby beach.

“It was clear that those efforts were fruitless,” Wohleb told the Weekly News. “Pam ran over to the neighboring boat works factory and got some buckets with which they hauled water from the channel. The fire was underground, and they called 911.”

A box of Graham crackers, marshmallows and a Hershey bar wrapper were found at the scene –evidence that the fire resulted from people making s’mores.

Overall, fire district service calls have been inching upward after a year-long decrease linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fire District 13 fielded 34 calls in June, 50% more than in May. They responded to 18 calls in June 2020.

“We are pretty much in line with 2019 pre-COVID numbers with our incident calls,” Weiss said, “and starting to surpass where we were last year.”