Confronting the wildfires of the 21st century has become a choice between making upfront investments to prepare and mobilize for their inevitable arrival — or footing a far costlier bill by reacting to the devastation after the fact.
Washington’s leaders should know this lesson well. In 2021, state lawmakers funded a record $125 million every two years to hasten wildfire response and make forests and fire-vulnerable communities less susceptible to megafires. The result: In three of the last four fire seasons, the state has kept 95% of fires below 10 acres.
So it was distressing to watch lawmakers and Gov. Bob Ferguson agree to chop in half that funding this year, knowing full well the risks the fire season brings. There’s only one sensible move for Dave Upthegrove, the state’s public lands commissioner: use every dollar at his agency’s disposal on maintaining the greatest firefighting force possible.
Disappointingly, a Department of Natural Resources analysis earlier this year showed the budget cuts could lead to cuts of 120 out of 550 seasonal firefighter positions, as reported by The Times’ Isabella Breda.
That is not acceptable. Let’s not forget this is the year the Trump administration took a chain saw to many federal agencies, including the United States Forest Service, which may have lost hundreds of staff members who support firefighting, ProPublica reported.
Then there is the state of the current landscape. Human-caused climate change is heating and drying out forests, intensifying fire risks. More than a century of fire suppression has led to an overgrowth of fuels in woodlands that feed megafires. And the Northwest is expected to have an “above average” threat of fire this season, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Expect smoky skies, or worse.
Now is no time for retreating from this challenge.
Despite the state’s wrongheaded funding cuts, Upthegrove should also pursue reinstatement of the full biennial wildfire funding when the Legislature reconvenes in January. And the governor should support him.
While budgets are tight, the Legislature can use funds generated by the Climate Commitment Act’s carbon auctions on the state’s largest polluters to fund the wildfire program. For the first time, lawmakers this year inserted some money from that source. Using such dollars to limit smoke damage and carbon emissions from fires is itself ample reason to tap the act’s dollars for this work.
Washington once simply reacted to catastrophic fires before the 2021 legislation, known as House Bill 1168, and the results were tragic. In 2015, three U.S. Forest Service firefighters died during a blaze in Twisp; in 2020, more than 180 homes were destroyed across the state, along with hundreds of thousands of acres burned.
Thanks to Upthegrove’s predecessor, Hilary Franz, the Legislature unleashed funding for more than 40 aircraft prepositioned around the state, many of which are contracted for exclusive use here — they fight Evergreen State fires before flying anywhere else. A series of AI-enhanced cameras also keep an eye on vast forestlands in case flames break out, giving crews a jump on dousing blazes before they cascade out of control.
But this year is particularly risky to let any part of our state’s guard down. Things could go south quickly. And speaking of south: Oregon spent $350 million on firefighting costs to battle blazes that burned a record 1.9 million acres in the state in 2024.
By comparison, Washington’s burned acres totaled about 300,000 last year, or only 16% of Oregon’s total. This year, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signaled she’s supportive of a legislative effort to create a $1 billion wildfire trust fund.
Even further south, the stunning catastrophe of January’s Southern California wildfires that killed at least 30 people and caused more than $250 billion in damages should weigh heavily on leaders. Once again, the choice is either to plan ahead and invest in fire preparedness or deal with greater, costlier fallout.
Better for the state to pay in advance — or we can expect a good chance of paying dearly later.
If you would like to share your thoughts, please submit a Letter to the Editor of no more than 200 words to be considered for publication in our Opinion section. Send to: letters@seattletimes.com
