Our Views: Don’t Let Muggy Spring Days Fool You, Fire Season Is Coming

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It’s hard to believe on a typical mid-spring day in Southwest Washington that the tinder-dry summer fire season is just around the corner — but don’t be fooled. 

In the past few weeks our days in Lewis County have started cool and have mostly ended with beautiful blue skies. Almost all of the trees are leafy, flowers are in bloom, and the morning dew sticks around past midday. 

Lawns and weeds are growing faster than gardeners can keep up with them — and while the plentiful fresh green color is a welcome sight after a long winter, it’s also a sign of things to come, firefighters say. 

When our spring rains dry up in the next few weeks, so will those tall grasses. 

“The fuel is here,” Chehalis Fire Chief Ken Cardinale told The Chronicle last week. “It just needs the right weather conditions. … Historically in the last 40 to 50 years, the weather’s protected this area during the summertime. The fuel doesn’t really lose its moisture.”

But that’s changed. Last August the Scatter Creek Fire furiously tore through more than 400 acres of grassland left dry as a bone by a few weeks of hot weather. The fire started on the west side of Interstate 5 and, aided by the late-summer afternoon winds common to the south Thurston area, formed what firefighters called a “wall of fire.” The west-side fire, determined by the state Department of Natural Resources to be caused by “an overheated circular saw used during a home renovation project,” gutted the Scatter Creek natural area and destroyed a homestead. 

Firefighters initially thought the blaze jumped I-5 to the east side of the freeway, sparking a second fire that destroyed a business and several homes before crews could control the rapidly growing and shifting fire. 

The state Department of Natural Resources later concluded the fire could not have jumped the freeway, given wind movements, but that the fire was instead caused by slow moving traffic on I-5, watching the fire’s progress on the opposite side of the road, which ignited the dry grasses on the shoulder.



Investigators determined “superheated carbon particles” started the fire, otherwise known as engine exhaust. 

That’s how dry it was. 

The Scatter Creek Fire is just one of several incidents leading the state to put more resources into fighting wildfires on the west side of the state.

“We know, especially after last year as we saw more fires in the west of our state, that we are now looking at wildfire season throughout our state and a larger part of our year,” state Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz told reporters at a Tuesday briefing in Tumwater. 

We at The Chronicle applaud Franz’ efforts to better equip Western Washington to fight summer wildfires, but the state’s actions don’t let individuals off the hook. We all have a responsibility to do our part to reduce fire danger in the first place. We strongly recommend that citizens should learn how to prevent fires and protect their property and others’.

Cardinale is planning to host talks in Lewis County on creating ‘defensible space’ around homes. We’ll be sure to print information on how to attend as soon as they’re scheduled. 

“(Past presentations) haven’t been highly attended by homeowners, because they don’t see this area as a threat because it’s so green,” Cardinale said. “When we need to be putting on these classes is now.”