As a wildfire advanced in August toward homes in the Aeneas Valley, a crew of Forest Service firefighters made their stand on familiar ground — a stretch of Ponderosa pine they had deliberatively burned during cooler spring and fall seasons to clear out undergrowth.
In this thinned-out forest, they halted the northern advance of the North Star wildfire, one of the largest blazes of the summer that consumed hundreds of square miles across the state. “This definitely gave us the upper hand to hold the fire where we wanted,” said Matt Marsh, a Forest Service task force leader who directed the effort.
Controlled burns, also known as prescribed fires, are widely backed by scientists as an important tool for keeping forests healthier and less susceptible to devastating wildfires. Forest Service officials and other forestry experts want to step up the scale of these burns in Washington.
But they’ve been hindered by a surprising roadblock: the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the agency responsible for much of the wildland firefighting in Washington.
DNR enforces a strict set of rules aimed at keeping smoke from drifting into communities — effectively limiting the scope of controlled burns sought by the Forest Service and others. Meanwhile, DNR has stopped conducting burns on its own forest lands.