DNR: 20th District Residents Face High Fire Risk

For those who live in the 20th Legislative district, the risk of wildfire isn’t going anywhere. According to the state Department of Natural Resources, 99 percent of the district’s residents live in a Wildland Urban Interface — the highest of any district in the state — putting them at greater risk for wildfire. 

The Wildfire division of the DNR placed 70,560 of the 70,987 homes in State Legislative District 20 – 99 percent – in its initial Wildland Urban Interface Analysis for Jan. 17, 2020.

DNR Wildfire Policy Advisor Loren Torgerson said the Wildland Urban Interface exists to classify homes built in the “piece between what we typically would consider wildland and suburban areas.”  

State Legislative District 19 had 54,757 of the 74,094 homes in the area listed, equating to 74 percent. For reference, LD20 and LD19 have the highest and the 11th-highest number of homes respectively of any other legislative district listed on Washington’s WUI.

“A couple years back, the legislature passed a bill that directed the Department of Natural Resources to work with counties, essentially, to map the Wildland Urban Interface,” Torgerson said. “The department undertook that project and looked at a number of criteria and what other states have done and developed sort of a computer algorithm to be able to map densities of homes and vegetation across the landscape and sort of overlayed those and used some criteria to establish essentially, number of homes per acre in areas that could burn more frequently.”

The process of establishing a true zone for each legislative district is viewed as collaborative between the respective counties in each legislative district and the DNR. Torgerson said the DNR’s WUI is the first step in starting the conversation between the two on wildfire prevention. 

“This is just a map that DNR initially developed,” Torgerson said. “To establish some criteria for defining where that WUI is at and then the counties can take that information and decide whether they want to adopt that or adopt ordinances specifically.”

Additionally, the WUI includes codes for different building materials that counties can choose to adopt to “reduce the losses from wildfire to those structures,” Torgerson said. 

According to Lewis County Fire Protection District 14 Chief Jeff Jaques, the county has also stressed the importance of Lewis County residents taking preventive measures in case of a wildfire.

“(Homeowners) need to take extra safety precautions,” Jaques said. “They need to provide defensible spaces, they need to have their homes protected from things such as flying embers from a fire, it’s not just so much space around it, it’s also those things, like vents with large screens on the buildings where embers could possibly get into an attic area, shrubbery up against the house, materials stored outside the house or near the house.”

Jaques added that, over the past several years he and his department have been trying to make residents aware of the dangers presented by wildfire. 

“There have been several classes hosted throughout the county, on the very subject, to make folks aware and provide them with information on things they can do to help protect their home if there were to be a wildfire,” he said.   

From 2009 to 2019, only four fires started in Lewis County burned between 100 and 1,000 acres according to a map released by the DNR. Thirteen burned between 10 and 100 acres and no fires were classified as large wildfires. One fire that burned between 100 and 1,000 acres was placed on the county line between Thurston county and Lewis county.

City of Chehalis Fire Chief Ken Cardinale attributes the low number of fires in the area to the weather. However, he doesn’t know how much longer it can serve as a preventative measure.

“These fires are becoming more dangerous, more intense, each year,” he said. “The threat is not lessening, it’s increasing. The only thing that’s saved this area has been the weather. If the weather continues to go in a drier trend, then the danger of wildfire is only going to increase.”

According to NOAA, Lewis County, saw a total of 90.35 inches of precipitation in 2018. That number, which includes the 18.91 inches that fell between Oct. 2019 and Dec. 2019. 

dropped to 59.25 in 2019.

Lewis County Fire Marshal Doyle Sanford said he feels that more resources need to be allocated toward preventative measures in a place like Lewis County, where a majority of the homes were included in the DNR’s WUI. . 

“You can always try to get more resources, the hard part is getting more volunteers,” Sanford said. “People have lives, they have other jobs and a lot of our rural fire districts are, they’re all volunteers. It seems like the younger generation just has a different outlook, I guess. They’re not wanting to be out in the country, they’re wanting to head to the city or they just have different interests.”

He pointed to these challenges as the reason why he feels officials at the state and county levels need to plan for the increasing probability of a wildfire. 

“They need to be proactive in protecting their own stuff, by saying, ‘Hey, we realize that the resources are becoming less but the increase in something happening is going up, so let’s plan for it,’” Sanford said. “Let’s make sure our roadways are clear of brush, get the underbrush away from the houses. Again, yes, a shake roof looks pretty, but, in a fire, it’s killing. So, if they can do their part in being proactive to protect their property, that’s going to help and lessen the need for resources.”