Intense heat brings concerns about possible wildfires
Dry conditions, coupled with triple digit temperatures, have fire officials on edge in Washington.
State Department of Natural Resources officials say about 400 fires have been reported across the state this spring and summer, about 60% in eastern Washington. Nearly all of them are human-caused. But lighting-sparked fires are a concern too.
Dry thunderstorms Wednesday resulted in numerous lightning strikes, according DNR wildfire meteorologist Mathew Dehr.
“We did have 599 lightning strikes, cloud to ground lightning strikes yesterday, and each of those represents a potential fire starts, so we do have crews pre-positioned. We’ve been tracking since last week, we've been able to order in out of state resources, and get prepared, but those crews are going to be tracking down fire starts all weekend," he said.
Dehr says temperatures will reach triple digits as we head into this weekend, then somewhat cooler air will move into the state early next week, but also bring another threat of thunderstorms.
Washington state commission to vote today on wolf status
Washington's state wildlife commission today will consider changing the status of gray wolves.
Gray wolves have been considered endangered in Washington since the 1980s, but Department of Fish and Wildlife officials say their population has rebounded enough that they should now be classfied as "sensitive."
“As you can imagine, a lot has happened in 44 years in wolf recovery," said Julie Smith, a wolf expert at the agency. "So we've gone from a place where we had no known wolves or no known wolf packs back in 1980. Now in 2024, we have a minimum of 42 wolf packs, and we're making significant progress toward recovery.”
Smith says there are now enough breeding pairs of wolves in two-thirds of the state to qualify for down listing.
She says some people have raised concerns the change in status will encourage poaching since the fine is lower for poaching a "sensitive" species, compared to an "endangered" species.
Washington primary election ballots to be mailed today
Election officials around Washington will send out ballots for the August primary today. Voters can then mail those ballots back, return ballots to official drop boxes or vote in-person.
Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, Washington election officials say voting by any of these methods is very secure.
Stuart Holmes, director of elections for the Washington Secretary of State's Office, says the process of maintaining election security can be complicated, so he tries to break down the whole process when people come to him with concerns.
“Whenever I'm talking to members of my communities, I talk about the entire ballot chain of custody so that they get a full glimpse of everything that our election officials are doing in the state," he said.
Washington's primary election is August 6. You can register to vote online up to eight days beforehand, or you can register in person at a polling location until 8 P.M. on Election Day.
Officers to have significant presence at eastern Washington music festival
This weekend’s Winthrop Rhythm and Blues Festival in the Methow Valley will draw fans from all over the Northwest. It’s also drawing state troopers from around central Washington.
State Patrol spokesman Jeremy Weber says his agency is working with local police to conduct what it calls a High Visibility Enforcement patrol, or HIVE.
“It’s not just all about drinking and driving," he said. "While that is a huge problem, also negligent driving, reckless driving and things of that nature that can put our residents in harms way. We look for all kinds of different behaviors like that and we want to put cars on the side of the shoulder that need to be stopped and discussed and have a discussion with them and curb that behavior because we don’t need fatalities.”
Weber says state troopers from the Methow and Okanogan valleys will be joined by others from central Washington. They will bring K-9 officers and teams that focus on aggressive driving. Weber says they’ll look for drivers not wearing their seatbelts and paying too much attention to their electronic devices.
Reporting contributed by Steve Jackson, Natalie Newcomb, Owen Henderson and Doug Nadvornick.