Busy summer wildfire season anticipated statewide

Summer vacation likely will be an oxymoron for area firefighters.

Forecasts place Washington state at the epicenter of regional wildfires from July to September.

“The outlook for Washington state is not all that great,” Skagit County Fire District 13 Assistant Chief Jamie Jurdi conceded last Thursday. “Washington is in the red throughout the whole wildfire season. Not just eastern Washington, but also western Washington.”

Fire District 13, serving Swinomish Reservation and the rural La Conner area, regularly mobilizes personnel and equipment to summer hotspots along the Pacific Coast and interior.

The district commissioners’ monthly hybrid meeting at its Snee-Oosh Road station coincided with U.S. Senate hearings focused on wildfire preparedness and response.

“I think America is waking up, at least on the East Coast, to this problem,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA., said during a meeting of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “And we certainly have known all about it on the West Coast for some time now. And I think that it is time and opportunity for us to really break down the barriers that are prohibiting us from having a faster response and working quickly on the faster response.”

In its June 1 assessment, the National Interagency Fire Center forecast “above normal” wildlife risk for July through September for nearly the entire state of Washington.

That level or risk is not typically seen statewide, particularly in historically cooler and wetter western Washington.

During the senate hearing, Cantwell pressed Jaelith Hall-Rivera, deputy chief of state, private and tribal forestry with the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, on the need to improve coordination between the various agencies fighting wildfires to ensure faster fire response.

“We absolutely need to break down barriers with all of our partners, states, tribes, counties, even between the federal agencies,” Hall-Rivera said.

Cantwell suggested increased collaboration with Canada, given that recent East Coast smoke originated in Quebec and some of the worst smoke events in Washington state were due to raging fires in British Columbia.

“I think it’s really time to engage with the Canadians,” Cantwell said. “We can’t just be sitting here, thinking that we have solved this problem, because our continent knows no U.S.-Canadian barrier.”

In a release her office issued Thursday, she listed billions of dollars she secured to support wildfire response and recovery in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including $3.4 billion for Hazardous Fuels Reduction programs and $500 million for Burned Area Rehabilitation Programs. She helped garner an additional $1.8 billion for the U.S. Forest Service Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Cantwell also called on U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore to hire more firefighters ahead of the 2023 wildfire season in April.

District Emergency Management Coordinator Ted Taylor, fondly dubbed “Capt. Catastrophe,” reminded commissioners of the Great ShakeOut earthquake preparedness event set for mid-October.

“Like I always say,” said Taylor, “it’s not a matter of if, but when, the Big One happens. We need to be prepared and not have to ask, ‘What do we do now?’ It could be five to seven days before any significant help can get in after a major disaster.”

Also announced was an open house ceremony at the Snee-Oosh station’s new residential unit named for former commission chair Larry Kibbee. The event is tentatively scheduled for July 8, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.