Washington started the fire season with the highest wildfire risk in the nation.
“We were prepping for an extremely long, severe season for this year. Everything was lining up for it to be that way,” said Vaughn Cork.
Cork, a Department of Natural Resources fire analyst, said the season turned out to be pretty tame.
“We have just a little more moisture in the air, and we think that's led to significantly lower fire growth than in the past,” said Cork.
This year, average temperatures are up and average precipitation is down, but one big factor that has helped is the slightly higher humidity.
The slower-than-expected season is helping firefighters catch their breath, but they're still staying busy.
The DNR has responded to nearly 1,100 wildfires this year, which is more than last year, but, this year, the fires stayed fairly small.
"Part of the reason we've been able to reduce the amount of damage is we're leveraging our resources and our air assets on initial attacks so we can get on top of those fire quickly and put them out,” said Hilary Franz, commissioner of public lands.
Crews also are lending a helping hand out of state.
Recently, 191 DNR firefighters helped fight the Swan Lake Fire in Alaska, which has burned more than 160,000 acres since June.
Despite the wet weather in Washington, experts said we're not out of the woods quite yet.
"We see a lot of human-caused starts in September and October on the west side. Because of that, we see a couple, three days of warm, dry weather, and things start taking off on us again,” Cork said.
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