This year’s wildfire season proved active across the Pacific Northwest, but a Washington state elected official says its firefighting agency is facing big budget cuts. According to the Oregon Department of Forestry, there were over 1,100 fires on state-protected land this year, burning just over 24,000 acres, but 94% of those fires were put out before growing beyond 10 acres.
Combining state and federal land in Oregon, there were nearly 3,000 fires that burned nearly 340,000 acres, equaling around 500 square miles. One, the Cram Fire, was classified as a megafire, with another burning one of the world’s tallest trees, located in Oregon.
Across the Columbia River, in the state of Washington, the head of the state’s Department of Natural Resources said this year’s wildfire season was a relatively typical year, but wildfires are becoming an “all of Washington” problem, not just east of the Cascades. This year, there were nearly 1,900 fires in Washington, burning around 250,000 acres, with 45% of those fires in western Washington. The vast majority were human-caused fires. But just like in Oregon, around 94% of fires on state land were kept at 10 acres or less.
