Wildland fire threat grows — that’s why WA needs a compensation fund | Opinion

I recently spent five days in the backcountry hunting for mule deer in an area that experienced a wildfire only a few years back. The landscape is still not fully recov

ered, with the husks of tall ponderosa pines still standing on the ridgelines waiting to succumb to the elements. Given the length of time it takes these giants to recover, it certainly will not recover in my lifetime, and likely will not even fully recover in the lifetimes of my young children. It can be heartbreaking to see such dramatic, sudden changes to a landscape, particularly when it alters it in such a way as to reduce or eliminate the benefits that landscape once provided to people.

However, wildfires are critical to Western landscapes. Without periodic wildfires, sequoias and lodgepole pine are unable to germinate, brush and understory can accumulate increasing the risk of stand-replacing wildfires that burn through the crowns of trees, and even certain types of habitat forms are left unfilled impacting the wildlife that rely on them. Humans and wildlife alike need wildfires; what we don’t want are wildfires that threaten homes, lives and livelihoods.

As a former wildland firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, I saw first-hand how quickly wildfires could change a landscape as well as our communities. From Los Angeles and Paradise in California, Talent, Detroit and Gates in Oregon, as well as Pateros, Medical Lake and Malden here in Washington, communities large and small have felt the effects of wildfires that have increased in frequency in many areas in recent decades. These wildfires disrupt businesses and families alike, often leaving folks without a permanent home for months while they wait for financial assistance to rebuild.

Disappointingly, the Trump administration has denied disaster relief to communities here in Washington state, effectively halting recovery efforts. Our communities cannot wait on Washington, DC; our state must step into the leadership space abandoned by President Donald Trump to help when disaster strikes.

That is why I was encouraged to see a “Wildfire Victims Fund” proposed to assist communities in rebuilding following a wildfire. The proposed fund is created through a surcharge on electric utilities, which is then managed to compensate those affected by wildfires. The fund would not be reliant on elected officials and political games in Washington, D.C., but rather managed in-state where it can quickly support families seeking to get their lives back on-track.

While the fund would not help to address some of the other risk factors associated with wildfires and their impacts on communities — including land use planning, property stewardship, and firefighter staffing and compensation — it does provide an important tool in responding to the effects of wildland fire. And while the state has made some investments in recent years to prepare communities and landscapes for wildland fires, there is no guarantee that those investments will prevent the next wildfire from threatening homes, displacing families, and disrupting businesses.

Our state’s wildland fire preparedness efforts must be an all-of-the-above approach, for which I hope the Legislature will establish the proposed Wildfire Victims Fund to include in its arsenal.

While snow is beginning to fall in the forests, it will soon be wildfire season again. Will Washington State be better prepared when it arrives?

Jordan Rash is freelance writer, podcaster, outdoorsman and conservation advocate in Tacoma. He’s spent a career on and around the forests, mountains, wetlands and rivers of the Pacific Northwest fighting wildfires, developing public policy and leading conservation efforts.