Fire departments, DNR crews prepare for wildfire season

A cool and overcast spring belies the coming summer and fire departments around the county are concerned, as forecasts point toward a high risk of wildfire this year.

Departments have already started battling small wildfires in the county’s vast wilderness this year, said Fire Chief Matt Miller of the Hoquiam Fire Department, the county’s wildland fire coordinator.

“According to everything DNR has provided, and looking at statistics for the snowpack and the rainfall over the winter, they’re already putting us in drought conditions for Grays Harbor,” Miller said in an interview. “The fire potential for most if not all of Grays Harbor is predicted to be high this year.”

Firefighters have already engaged fires in Pacific Beach, near Artic, and out in East County this spring, Miller said, and as the temperature climbs to its zenith during the summer, the risk will only get worse.

“Our fires over here are human caused, for the majority,” said Mark Kin Kade, head of the local DNR wildland firefighting unit. “It seems like we’ve got more people coming over to this side of the state for vacation.”

Warmer temperatures and more people lead to higher risk, Kin Kade said, and sustained drought is never good.

Climbing risk

“This was the same weather pattern we saw in 2013 and 2014,” said Morgan Reisdorfer, assistant fire unit manager for DNR’s wildland firefighter detachment here in Grays Harbor, in an interview. “There was significantly reduced snowpack. There was lots of rain in the early spring that melted the existing snowpack.”

Steady winds, low predicted precipitation, and higher temperatures are all combining to erode the historical defenses against wildfires out on Washington’s damp coasts, Reisdorfer said. The plants, grass and other natural debris which fuel a fire may also burn faster, without steady rainfall to keep the earth soaked and sodden.

“Us looking at some of those trends, it’s concerning,” Reisdorfer said. “It’s a combination of some of the local people might not be prepared for the change in behavior the fuels are going to display. And we get a lot of people coming from out of the area that without the information or signage are not going to know.”

2024 is already showing distressing signs, Reisdorfer said.

“We’ve already had five fires in our area. It’s concerning based on the size,” Reisdorfer said. “We had fires last year and the year before that and the year before that. But not this size.”

While the calculus for fires is different than traditional hotspots on the other sides of the Cascades, the game is changing, Miller said.

“We’re not Eastern Washington with super high temps and super low relative humidity. But things are changing here,” Miller said. “It’s becoming a little more common for the middle of the county to experience some fires. An example is the Artic brushfire we had a few weeks ago.”

The beaches, with their grasses and steady winds, and East County, with higher temps and lower humidity, are trouble spots. But the entire county could be at risk, depending on the weather, Miller said.

“The bigger areas in Grays Harbor are the beaches. They get dried out, they have those light grasses, and you have people coming to the beach starting fires or lighting fireworks or doing whatever it is they do,” Miller said. “Last year, and apparently starting this year, the middle part of the county is starting to get very susceptible to the wildland fires.”

While the east side of the state has traditionally been the highest fire risk, the west side is gaining ground, said

Fighting back

While the risk might be rising, the county is far from defenseless. As residents have seen time and time again, the firefighters and the systems to push back against the risk of unchecked wildfires are in place and ready.

“In Hoquiam specifically, we have had all of our staff (National Wildfire Coordinating Group) firefighter 2 certified. — which means our red cards — the beginning training for wildland fire,” Miller said. “I know throughout the county, there are a lot more fire staff who are trained to deal with wildland fire. There are quite a few departments throughout the county getting more brush trucks and tenders. They’re smaller, lighter weight. They can get out on the logging roads, the beaches, wherever they need to go.”

For the last several years, departments in the county have been putting more emphasis on preparing for wildland fires. With more firefighters red carded, or trained for wildland fire operations, the county is able put together teams to respond to wildfires inside the county or in the larger area that Grays Harbor falls under for state wildfire response, Miller said.

“We’re trying to build a better system in Grays Harbor,” Miller said. “The system’s working. Mixing and matching the people back and forth to provide a better service to the state. That can create a better service in the county when it’s needed.”

As Grays Harbor provides firefighters and brush trucks to support efforts outside the county, it also means that other counties are able to support Grays Harbor for wildland fires, Miller said.

“Luckily Grays Harbor hasn’t had anything so big that it completely overtakes our county resources,” Miller said. “There have been a few in the last couple years that have taken a lot but not wiped out the entire county.”

Grays Harbor has a lot of woodlands to keep an eye out for, Miller said. Local departments will usually be the first firefighters on scene.

“Most of the timberlands in Grays Harbor, if they’re not covered by a district, they’re covered by DNR or both,” Miller said. “DNR has a lot of resources, but they also have a lot of land to cover. It sometimes takes a couple hours to get enough manpower and equipment in.”

DNR has the specialized training and on-call assets for wildland firefighting, Miller said, like being able to call for aerial support. Once DNR takes over a fire, the local agencies, which are responsible for every other 911 call in their area, will hopefully be able to get back to doing that, Miller said.

“One of the things they try to do is get enough resources to release the local departments to get to handling 911 calls,” Miller said. “We got on scene, we start it, we call for DNR. DNR comes and supplements what we have. Hopefully fire goes and or they take it over.”

The local DNR firefighting unit is in good shape for that, Kin Kade said, though firefighting recruitment isn’t easy anywhere, either for local departments or for wildland firefighting.

“Is it working? I would say so,” Kin Kade said. “We’re picking up more local people this year than ever before.”

Reisdorfer said they work to make sure the firefighters they have are prepared to integrate smoothly in or out of the county.

“We’re trying to set people aside the way the feds do it,” Reisdorfer said. “It’s good best practice. And demonstrates a good amount of an experience to the other people.”

DNR has also increased the amount of fixed- and rotary-wing support, which can be a game-changing asset in a fast-developing fire.

“The agency has prepared more, especially aviation,” Kin Kade said. “We’ve got aircraft all over the state.”

Prevention/preparedness

The Daily World has previously reported that praying or sacrificing to the old gods for steady rainfall may help prevent wildfires. If that is ineffective, there are a number of ways that residents can be prepared, and to help mitigate the damage a wildfire may cause.

“The other thing the state’s been putting a lot of effort into is the prevention aspect of things,” Reisdorfer said. “You don’t have to wait for bad things to happen to do something good for your home and your community. You can take those steps right now.”

The Firewise program, run by the National Fire Protection Association, has guidelines for preventing risk to your house from things around it that may catch fire during a larger wildfire event, with the tenets of the program on the NFPA’s website. Much of Grays Harbor falls in the Wildland-Urban Interface, where forests and wildlands are right up against buildings, meaning a fire in the trees can spread to homes very easily, Miller said.

“The majority of Hoquiam falls in the WUI. A lot of Hoquiam you have buildings and population nestled right up against forest land. The McCleary fire last year was a prime example of that,” Miller said. “The downtown sections of any city are out of it. But that’s very confined sections. We’ve got trees everywhere. Pretty much the whole county has some WUI somewhere.”

Firewise breaks the area around a residence into sectors, from 0 to 5 feet, 5 to 30 feet, and 30 to 100 feet. Most of the tips are simple and straightforward things that many residents are doing anyway — clearing gutters, moving piles of flammable material further from homes, clearing out vegetation debris that could spread the flames. The complete list is online at https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/wildfire/firewise-usa.

“Prevention is good. Clear out the flammable brush, landscaping and whatnot. Even putting out a sprinkler,” Miller said. “If you have a water source, put it out and try and wet things down.”

Residents in areas threatened by a fire should keep an eye on local fire department social media pages, or on updates from Grays Harbor Emergency Management. A go-bag, or bag with one’s essentials, is a marvelous idea for this and many other scenarios, Kin Kade said.

“95% of the fires here are human caused. People are all over here,” Reisdorfer said. “Don’t panic. The districts themselves, they’re good at getting messages out to people. If the wildland firefighter suggest that you leave your house, maybe listen.”

Preparedness, prevention and vigilance are your best tools for what could be an extra-hot summer, Reisdorfer said. There’s more resources available at https://wildfireready.dnr.wa.gov.

“This is the first time that I remember (the NWCG) specifically calling out the Olympic National Forest as an area of specific concern,” Reisdorfer said. “For the (NWCG) folks to say the Olympic National Forest is a place of concern for them, gives me alarm.”

Contact Senior Reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or michael.lockett@thedailyworld.com.