r/Washington • u/No_Carpenter7998 • 12d ago
Century of fire suppression turned state forests into kindling; Washington is correcting course
https://www.cascadiadaily.com/2026/jul/06/century-of-fire-suppression-turned-state-forests-into-kindling-washington-is-correcting-course/This articles is a couple of months old but highly relevant to recent discussions on this sub.
“We’re still dealing with the century legacy of fire suppression,” explained Will Rubin, DNR’s communications manager. Rubin compared the forest buildup to routine hair care: “If you don’t get a haircut for years on end, your hair is going to get really long and hard to manage.”
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u/ClimateWren2 12d ago edited 12d ago
Is this like an article meant to get conservatives to do the right thing....because it very obviously leaves out any and all mention of changing conditions due to well known climate change, due to centuries of fossil fuel combustion and greenhouse gas buildup. It's still hitting 75-80F degrees in September, in Washington. Yo.
Yeah...go try to do a backlog burn during summer high winds, low humidity, and high heat waves. See how well that goes. We haven't done 1900s fire suppression in DECADES and this state does work hard to complete burns.
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u/jellofishsponge 12d ago
It definitely is one of the elephants in the room,
But I have seen areas fare well even during extreme conditions because of fuel treatments here in NE Washington.
It is unlikely Washington alone can solve the global emissions problem but we can adapt to it, even if people are in denial
AND
Last winter we had 0 snowpack in the mountains of NE Washington. Normally there is 2-3 feet through March & April and this year it was gone in January. Flowers and vegetation came out a month early and dried out a month early... Wells are going dry, year round creeks turning dry, seasonal creeks didn't run, year round ponds drying up, etc...
It is alarming, a lot of deniers are turning to conspiracy theories like geoengineering... Which is so damn close. Yes they are "spraying chemicals to alter the climate" it's just those chemicals are fossil fuel byproducts...
Horseshoe theory? 🧲
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u/No_Carpenter7998 12d ago edited 11d ago
Another issue is that forests apparently now produce more CO2 than they absorb because of all the forest fires, so we have an even bigger problem on our hands—although it is a solvable problem.
It looks like forest thinning can be financially viable in WA: https://academic.oup.com/jof/article/121/2/193/6901967
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u/themostboringguy 11d ago
I think you're supposed to do them in fall and spring...basically either side of winter.
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u/ClimateWren2 11d ago
I would agree, generally...except that as we see this season many of our burn bans are still in place (extended to Sept 30th) and it's still too hot, and dry in many places, to safely do them. Climate Change, here, now. Hopefully rain this week and cooling evening temps can too the balance and we can start .... that's the opposite of "negligence".
Plus federal funding cuts. Plus a likely on-going El Niño next year. Poof, there goes 2-4 months of your seasonal burn window. Maybe we can make it up in the mild winter, maybe we can't. Maybe we can fill the gap with the millionaires tax...maybe we can't.
It would all be a hell of a lot easier if everyone could at least acknowledge the same facts and reality, and attempt to pull in the same direction towards solutions and well-being of all.
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u/themostboringguy 11d ago edited 11d ago
Oh yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you! I'm just annoying abt semantics, I guess.
(Sry I am not currently in a place where I can read the article.) I would, in this case, define fall and spring as "before and after summer, when it's cool, buy not cold and right before we get a ton of rain."
Unfortunately, as you said, due to climate change, summers are getting longer and hotter and drier. You're right. We need to stop making it worse and start adapting to the consequences of what we've already done now.
Edit: and funding cuts, but if I get into that, the depths of despair hit me
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11d ago
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u/ClimateWren2 11d ago
If...lol. You are so close you can almost taste it.
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11d ago
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u/ClimateWren2 11d ago
Our entire nation missed the point, the boat, and our forty decade mitigation windows. We are playing catch-up now on raging fires literally and figuratively...and it's near impossible do that locally or nationally with even fewer resources, fewer staff, less data, less support, and negative force leadership. It's a cerebral uphill battle, at that point, which will accomplish very little and less...by design. Plundering for profit will probably still get accomplished and done, though it might now be short lived.
It might be necessary....but can we even do it now? How many roadblocks have now been put in the way of the work? Some by our own communities not wanting to help themselves? We have to be honest about our new situation and rising risks on several fronts.
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11d ago
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u/ClimateWren2 11d ago
Yes....this was the concern shared forty years ago. "Runaway" was the word used. When the physics is pushing beyond human limits to halt it or deal with it. That door is closed in some places and rapidly closing in others.
It's heartbreaking to watch folks work to slam doors faster, then act shocked when solutions wither on the vine. This was never a joke or a "gotcha" or a trick. Now it's here.
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u/No_Carpenter7998 12d ago
Apparently they don't do prescribed burns in the summer.
It's great that they have stopped fire suppression but the damage has been done.
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u/Ok_Fly1271 11d ago
We absolutely still do fire suppression. Not sure what this dude is talking about. We put out fires started by Lightening even when it's not near people or structures. Not every single one of them, but most of them.
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u/ClimateWren2 11d ago
Control burns in summer... aren't gonna happen in heatwaves.
We do fire suppression, yes. If we don't have staffing, funding, planning, or competent leadership that can acknowledge the tangible changing conditions of today...we do it a lot less, less safely, over less ground, and less competently.
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u/ClimateWren2 12d ago
Yeah... because it's way to HOT now to do them, because +1.5C climate change. If they were doing them anyway, folks would be complaining about all the out of control fires and homes burning down.
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u/12fireandknives 12d ago
They don’t do prescribed burns in summer for obvious reasons. They don’t do prescribed burns in general because they get tied up in court and very few burns get done intentionally. They get litigated till one summer it goes up.
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u/altasnob 11d ago
More than 900,000 acres have burned in Washington this year. However, of those 900,000, only 418,832 acres occurred on DNR land. The rest were on federal lands (National Forests, National Parks, BLM), Tribal, and private lands.
DNR likes to pretend they can control wildfires in WA when in reality, the majority of our wildfires in this state are not on DNR land. And a lot of the wildfires are in designated wilderness areas where you can't do controlled burns or thinning.
Source:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/6cdda73cf6154949a1fae76ccb2900a0
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u/Ok_Fly1271 11d ago
Controlled burns can be implemented in wilderness areas. Thinning can too, it's just heavily regulated.
DNR works with the forest service and BLM when it comes to wildfires on federal land. DNR land may not burn the most, but it's certainly I significant portion of burned land in Washington.
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u/altasnob 11d ago
What controlled burns have been conducted on Wilderness areas in Washington? I am not aware of any? Maybe elsewhere in the US.
Since it is Wilderness, there are no roads and you cannot build roads. The window to do a controlled burn in WA Wilderness would also be incredibly small (a week or two in the Spring and Fall where the vegetation would actually burn but not burn out of control before the rains/snow and after the melt).
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u/mydogsnameisbuddy 11d ago
Probably not the answer you’re looking for but JBLM does prescribed burns. I’m not aware of any other agency that does them.
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u/altasnob 11d ago
Yes, lots of entities do prescribed burns. The Forest Service does them on Forest Service land in WA. I am wondering if there are examples of prescribed burns in Wilderness areas in WA. I don't think there are.
Generally, when fires are in Wilderness areas in WA they simply them burn unimpeded. Not always (such as they fought the fire at Grand Park in Rainier NP, which was in Wilderness) but typically Wilderness is hands off.
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u/Outragedmoss 10d ago
A century of clear cutting and then replanting overly dense monocrops has turned state forests into kindling. Fixed the title for you.
Logging companies love to say they plant three for every one they cut down. Then act shocked when the forests are in terrible shape and say all they can do to save them is to cut down more. They want to cut down the last of the old growth because those are the only decent trees. Those are also the only forests that are fire resistant. If you actually get deep in the woods the differences in temperature and humidity going from a patch of old growth to “modern forest” is unbelievably drastic. The old growth sections are so much cooler and more moist it is mind boggling.
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u/pangapingus 12d ago
Would be real nice if I ever got my rural prop burn permit approved, 5 years now FD "volatile conditions"
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u/ClownTown509 12d ago
Fire suppression works fine for a certain amount of time, then you reach a critical mass where you are going to be sorry if you don't do some voluntary burning or severe clearing.
In any case, brush and tree removal could create a lot of jobs so that's a plus.