Western Washington faces elevated wildfire risk in 2019
Fire authorities are gearing up for another long fire season in the Pacific Northwest after predictions were released earlier this week.
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) released its April through July fire predictions for the country, and the report shows that Western Washington will be more prone to fires than usual over the coming months. While Western Washington, including Puget Sound, will have a higher risk of fires, much of the risk in Eastern Washington remains average. This is expected to change in the northern areas of the state along the Canadian border in June and July in areas of the state that have been decimated by wildfires in recent years.
“We’re probably in for a long fire season. We really hope we’re wrong, but probably aren’t with some of these predictions going on, but we want people to report any fire they see to 911,” said Janet Pearce, communications manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. “We’d rather have a false alarm than a large wildfire that no one called in.”
This year has already seen 51 fires in March alone, with 49 of them happening west of the Cascades in southwest Washington, primarily in Cowlitz and Lewis counties and along the Columbia River. Some 90 residents in Cowlitz County were evacuated and around 272 acres were burned in the historically fire-resistant west side. These fires were caused mainly by people burning yard waste, and fires are expected to continue to start on the west side.
https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/western-washington-faces-elevated-wildfire-risk-in-2019/
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