With over a month of burning and over a thousand acres blacked, the Jolly Mountain fire was one of the major blazes the state of Washington faced.
James Schroeder, the Nature Conservancy, said the health of the forest had its part to play.
"On August 11th, natural lightning came through, ignited the Jolly Mountain fire and then the conditions were just primed for a 37,000-acre forest fire," he said.
Now the Department of Natural Resources has partnered with other groups to improve the health of our forests and make them less susceptible to lighting up.
“The health of our forest is poor,” Schroeder said. “We have 10 million acres of forest in Washington. 2.7 million acres are really out of balance and that means they are at risk of these large catastrophic wild fires.”