Wet weather has caused grasses to grow tall and lush. The abundant vegetation could pose an elevated fire risk later.
State still looking for firefighters, waiting for equipment
After two historic fire seasons in 2020 and 2021, the start of the traditional wildfire season has been delayed by atypically wet and cool spring weather.
The prolonged moisture is attributable to the strongest La Niña pattern for April and May in 72 years, state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Meteorologist Matt Dehr said at a June 2 briefing about the upcoming fire season.
There’s a 58% chance that La Niña will continue through the summer and even into October, Dehr said.
After the extra rain — 200% of normal over the past 30 days — the Washington Department of Ecology significantly scaled back the drought designations for the state. Now just 9% of the state is in drought, a complete reversal from the 96% declared in drought before the wet weather. None of western Washington is in drought, and severity has substantially decreased in eastern Washington.
Despite the rain, in the eastern and lower parts of the Methow watershed are still in drought-advisory status. The Okanogan watershed is one of just five watersheds in the state still considered to be in drought, according to Ecology.
Even though April and May were the fourth-wettest period, statewide, that Washington has seen since 1895, all that moisture doesn’t immediately reverse a long-standing drought, according to Ecology.
Under state law, any area with a water supply below 75% of normal is considered in drought. The forecast for the Okanogan River at Oroville this summer is for flows at 64% of normal, and storage is below 50% in some lakes used by the Okanogan Irrigation District. The greatest concerns are for lower-elevation tributaries in the Okanogan watershed that didn’t fill over the winter, Ecology said.
Wet weather
In just two rainy days in June, the Methow Valley got almost three-fourths of the typical precipitation for the entire month. The wet weather has affected the entire inland Northwest. “Overall, for the region, it has been a really active pattern,” National Weather Service (NWS) Meteorologist Todd Carter said.
As of June 11, Winthrop had received 1.28 inches of rain, more than 2.7 times the normal precipitation (0.47 inches) for the whole month, NWS Meteorologist Stephen Bodnar said. Half an inch of that rain fell in a single day.
In Mazama, temperatures have been below normal on all but three days in June — including 12 degrees cooler than usual on June 10. In Winthrop, about half of the days have been cooler than normal, but not as dramatically.
On Saturday (June 4), the 0.76 inches of rain that fell at the Omak Airport broke the previous record of 0.74 inches, set in 1951, according to the NWS.
Few fires so far
Compared to last year, when firefighters battled 226 fires in April alone, this year’s unusually soggy weather has kept fire starts very low, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said. There have been 88 fire starts this year, all but eight in eastern Washington. Virtually all fires were controlled at less than 10 acres, Franz said. Fire has burned only 78 acres of land managed by DNR this year.
The slow fire season has been a boon to fire crews, giving them time to train and build collaboration, Franz said.
Because the fuels — from fine grasses to shrubs to trees — are still wet, fire will have a hard time getting established, particularly in heavy logs and trees, which can take a month to dry out. That means that any fire behavior would be “relatively benign,” DNR Fire Regulation Program Manager Vaughn Cork said.
But fire risk will shoot up quickly when the weather turns and vegetation dries out. Short-term extreme weather can change the trajectory rapidly, he said.
In fact, even the extra rain could have a downside once the weather warms up, since the lush, tall grasses can dry quickly and contribute to rapid fire spread. Cork singled out the Okanogan Valley as a place that could face elevated risk from moisture-fed grasses.
Because of the lingering effects of the drought, there’s still above-normal potential for significant fire activity in July and August on the east slopes of the Cascades. For now, the mountain snowpack remains healthy, Cork said.
Meteorologists are anticipating temperatures across the state to be cooler than normal this summer, but they also expect conditions to be somewhat drier than normal, Cork said. They forecast the first heat wave, with temperatures in the 80s, in mid-June.
Waiting for people and equipment
DNR has received additional funding from the state Legislature for forest health. There’s also more money for wildfire preparedness, prevention and protection.
Although DNR has been able to use the money for heavy equipment and personnel, the agency is still looking to fill positions for fire crews and equipment operators. They’re also waiting for some of the equipment to arrive and for vehicles to transport it, DNR Assistant Division Manager for Plans and Information Angie Lane said.
Supply-chain issues have contributed to the delay of heavy equipment. If those issues aren’t resolved, DNR may be able to use transport vehicles from other states, she said.
DNR is experiencing the same difficulties as almost all industries across the country in finding employees. Another contributing factor is that the additional funding created new job opportunities for existing fire staff, who advanced to other positions and haven’t all been replaced, Lane said. The requirement that all state employees be vaccinated against COVID is not believed to be a factor in the hiring problems, DNR Public Information Officer Thomas Kyle-Milward said.
The funding is also geared toward workforce development for forest health and firefighting, including a program to help formerly incarcerated individuals who’ve served on state fire-response crews find work in wildfire suppression and forest management. The money is also earmarked to improve the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of DNR’s fire-aviation program, according to a summary of the legislation.
DNR can draw on partnerships with other agencies to fill the gaps if necessary, Lane said. The Northwest is partnering with firefighters from parts of the country where fire season occurs at a different time of year.
DNR plans to use 10-person crews instead of 20-person crews so that they can be stationed more widely across the state, where they’ll be paired with local crews, Lane said.
DNR has 120 engines pre-deployed around the state. There will be one air-attack plane, two planes that scoop water, and three helicopters based in Omak, she said.
Last year, there were 1,872 wildfires in Washington, which burned almost 675,000 acres. Eighty-eight percent of the fires were human caused, according to DNR.
The Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires in the Methow burned more than 126,000 acres combined, but the largest single fire in Washington last year was the Schneider Springs Fire near Naches.
La Niña pattern comes on strong
The wet weather is a function of the strongest La Niña pattern in almost three-quarters of a century, according to state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Meteorologist Matt Dehr.
During normal conditions in the Pacific Ocean, trade winds blow west along the equator, which carry warm water from South America toward Asia. To replace that warm water, cold water rises from the depths, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
But during a La Niña period, the trade winds are stronger than usual, which pushes more warm water toward Asia and brings cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface on the Pacific coast of the United States.
These cold waters push the jet stream further north, leading to heavy rains and flooding in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, and to drought in the southern U.S. It also keeps weather cooler than normal in the North.
By contrast, El Niño makes the northern U.S. and Canada dryer and warmer than usual, and brings more moisture and increased flooding to the Southeast.
Episodes of El Niño and La Niña typically last nine to 12 months, but they can last for years. They typically occur every two to seven years, but not on a regular schedule. El Niño generally occurs more often than La Niña, according to NOAA.
Both names come from the Spanish. El Niño means Little Boy, or Christ Child. South American fishermen, who first noticed periods of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean in the 17th century, called the phenomenon El Niño de Navidad (Christmas Eve) because it typically peaks in December. La Niña means Little Girl. That phenomenon is sometimes called El Viejo (the old one).
