CLE ELUM, Wash. — Local leaders are looking ahead as Washington wraps up a historic fire season that saw communities devastated.
Dozens of industry and government leaders met in Kittitas County this week to discuss and plan for the next fire season at the Washington Wildfire Resilience Leadership Summit, organized by the nonprofit American Forests.
“We’ve organized this whole thing, because we know we need a lot of collaborative work to deal with the wildfire problems that exist in Washington State,” Kendall DeLyser Roney, American Forests’ senior director of forest climate science, said.
The summit aimed to showcase what works when it comes to keeping people and properties safe during fires.
KIRO 7 rode along for a field tour, starting with a look at a hand crew clearing land and removing growth, so a fire would be unable to spread out of control.
“Tree removal, brush removal,” Lt. Beau Foster of Kittitas County Fire Prevention District #6 said. “We are just trying to get the fuel off the landscape, so it makes a more fire resilient property and community.”
It’s a process that requires nearly year-round work.
“The work to mitigate the threat actually requires a lot of men and women with boots on the ground, getting dirty, running chainsaws, running heavy equipment, and doing work,” Chris Martin, emergency management coordinator for the City of Roslyn, said.
Martin was among several presenters at the summit. He aimed to show others how his team is protecting their community.
“This problem is not solved with satellites, it’s not solved with meetings, and it is not solved with studies,” Martin said. “We already know what we need to do.”
Visitors were also briefed on making homes and neighborhoods fire resilient, fireproofing utilities by moving power lines underground, or replacing wooden poles with composite ones.
They ended the trip with a moment of silence at the Thirtymile Fire memorial, where four firefighters died in 2001 -- a reminder that, in addition to nature and property, lives are at stake during wildfires.
“If we don’t get it right, that’s all at risk,” DeLyser Roney said.