Another busy fire season should be expected this year with land around Yakima especially vulnerable.
Speaking at a conference of wildland firefighters from Alaska, Washington and Oregon at the Yakima Convention Center, Josh Clark, a meteorologist with the state Department of Natural Resources said, “If I were to pick one place that might experience above-average fire danger, it’s the Yakima Valley and the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains.....less rain in the winter, above-average temperatures and less mountain snow mean fires could start earlier and burn longer than a typical season."
Chuck Turley, a wildfire division manager for the state Department of Natural Resources said Washington has seen a dramatic increase in wildfires over the past 10 years because of climate change: “We don’t think of them as fire seasons anymore, we think of them as fire years, because they start earlier and go later."