For the state’s Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, the smoky air that continues to choke the Inland Northwest each summer is a sign that Washington will have to battle wildfires independently in the future.
“We tried to find additional air support outside,” Franz said in an interview this week, after a 2018 wildfire season that resulted in more than 1,850 blazes in Washington, the most in the state’s history. “We used everything we had up in Washington state, and we went outside. And because of California, Colorado, Oregon and other states already on fire, they had already grabbed everything that was available.”
That’s why Franz is asking the state Legislature, as part of its 2019 budget, to dedicate $55 million to beef up the Department of Natural Resource’s fire response team and fund programs to thin timber most susceptible to scorching. It’s the most the agency says it has ever requested to fight fires, and would represent a doubling of the state’s investment in fire suppression from previous budget cycles.