wildfires

Two northeast Washington legislators say they support the concept of creating a fund to pay for wildfire prevention and forest restoration on state lands. It’s an idea proposed by Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz.

Franz proposes to add a surcharge on property and casualty insurance premiums — about a dollar a month, she estimates — and direct the money to a wildfire prevention and forest restoration fund.

Today on Inland Journal, two segments about the health of forests in our region.

Later, we’ll hear part of a session from a Western Governors Association workshop conducted Tuesday in Post Falls. It focused on improving the resilience of forests in the region.

But first, this week, Washington state Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz released a plan to create a dedicated fund to pay for forest health and wildfire prevention. She proposes a surcharge on property and casualty insurance premiums. Her office estimates the increased cost for the average household will be a little more than a dollar a month and raise about $63 million a year.

All the rain we expected this week is in direct contrast to last year, when Washington was dry and wildfires made the air the most hazardous in the nation because of the smoke.

Washington Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz says this year’s fire season has turned out much different than she anticipated back in the spring, when a record 54 fires had been reported by the second week of March.

It’s bill signing season for Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who signed several pieces of legislation into law on Wednesday. Friday he affixed his signature to another three dozen bills.

One new law requires the state Fish and Wildlife Commission to adopt rules that requires hunters to wear either florescent orange or, in what’s new here, florescent pink. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Lynda Wilson, wore a bright pink vest to the signing ceremony.

Washington state Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz is commenting on President Trump’s tweet Wednesday that he may cut off FEMA funding to California for wildfires if the state doesn’t “get its act together.”

The Spokane Fire Department is an agency that works mostly in city settings, but more and more, it’s responding to fires at the edges of the urban area. This year, it went well beyond what it had budgeted for wild land firefighting. On Monday, it will ask the city council to extend its budget to cover those extra costs.

For several days recently, the country’s eyes were glued to the wildfires burning in California as they destroyed thousands of homes and killed dozens of people. The fires ignited a national debate about the need to be more aggressive in managing forests to lower the risk of fire.

The catalysts in Washington were the wildfire seasons of 2014 and 2015. Hundreds of thousands of acres burned during hot, dry, windy summers in the eastern and central parts of the state.

The smoke from area wildfires can pose a health threat to humans, but you may be surprised to learn that researchers are also trying to find out the negative impacts the smoke may have on birds.

With several fires burning in the Northwest, air quality has become a concern. The Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency reports that the air classification in and around Spokane has moved between “moderate” and “unhealthy for sensitive groups” today.

When a wildfire ignites and firefighters are called to put it out, they not only bring the equipment they need to battle the fire. They also bring a whole logistical system to take care of their personal needs. Sometimes on the big fires, that support system becomes quite an operation.

You can get a sense of what that looks like this week at Deer Park High School, north of Spokane.

The spring floods in eastern Washington are just receding, but already wildfire season has begun. A brush fire pushed by strong winds burned nearly three thousand acres Sunday near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

This summer, crews in Washington and Idaho will work on forest restoration projects on state and federal lands. Some projects are aimed at lowering wildfire risk; others have different goals.

A forest ecologist says that requests for more forest thinning to reduce the threat of fire danger are misguided.

The number of wildfires burning across the west has prompted some lawmakers to call for more timber harvest to reduce the threat of wildlife by reducing the number of dead and dying trees, many of them suffering the effects of bark beetles.

One ecologist says that the real issue is a warmer climate, and calls for more thinning are just a way to please the timber industry.

Rural fire crews in northeast Washington are on alert, hoping no major fires break out before the rains finally arrive.

The ponderosa forests of Stevens County are tinder dry right now, and fire managers hope they have enough resources to be able to handle what might be in store before fire season is over.

Wildfire season has begun in the Inland Northwest.

The Spokane area hasn’t yet seen any major fires, but crews from several Spokane County fire departments know it’s only a matter of time. They’re practicing how they’ll react when they get the call. This week they’ve been holding drills on a hilly, forested residential lot in the south valley.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee has been busy this week and last doing an essential function of his job: signing bills into law.

Most of them are targeted and will have a small impact.

This week in Olympia, two forest health bills that we reported on two weeks ago continue to move along in the Washington legislature. What’s interesting is the public support those bills are receiving from conservation groups.