State cuts wildfire prevention funds in half. Is WA ready for the summer fire season?
Washington state lawmakers made numerous cuts to balance the budget – including a “massive” reduction in the state’s wildfire prevention, resilience and response funding.
That’s according to Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove, head of the Department of Natural Resources. He said that a few years ago, state lawmakers committed to providing $125 million per biennium for wildfire prevention and response. Over the past two bienniums, it averaged about $120 million.
But when lawmakers left Olympia this year, he said, that initial number had been slashed by more than half: $60 million for the coming two years.
Gov. Bob Ferguson signed that operating budget Tuesday afternoon.
“We’re going to be OK this summer,” Upthegrove said. “But the Legislature needs to come back next year and fill that hole, or else we risk threats to public safety.”
Compounding the issue is uncertainty from President Donald Trump’s administration, which since January has been on a slash-and-burn spree – extinguishing federal funding, programs and jobs.
State Sen. June Robinson, the upper chamber’s lead budget writer, said Upthegrove’s math isn’t wrong, but offered context on what drove lawmakers’ decision.
In 2021, state lawmakers passed a plan to invest $125 million each biennium into an account for wildfire response, forest restoration and community resilience. Robinson, an Everett Democrat, said that since then, about $120 million per biennium has been transferred to the account.
But she said there’s still some money left in that account that hasn’t been spent.
“We gave them appropriation authority, meaning they can spend $118 million,” Robinson said. “So they can use the remaining money in the account, as well as the $60 million that we transferred in.”
In Fiscal Year 2024, DNR spent about $43 million, she said.
Robinson said although less was appropriated this time around, lawmakers were mindful of DNR’s historic spending levels. And if needed, legislators can revisit the matter while crafting the supplemental budget during next year’s 60-day session.
Pat Sullivan, DNR’s director of governmental and external affairs, said DNR was clear with the Legislature that there likely wouldn’t be an ending-fund balance this year.
He noted that the account has a $31.5 million balance – but that doesn’t include money that’s been spent and hasn’t been billed. And several weeks remain in the current fiscal year, a time when DNR tends to spend “quite a bit” to prepare for wildfire season, Sullivan said.
“We very specifically wanted to make sure that they were aware that … we’d be asking for additional money in the supplemental budget, because we didn’t plan to have anything left in the account,” he said.
The funding in question is used to conduct prescribed burns and forest thinning, Upthegrove said. It also covers the cost of key equipment that helps ensure a fast response to fires.
Taken together, it means the state is less likely to have to respond to a fire, he said, let alone pay for post-disaster recovery.
“So it’s penny -wise, pound -foolish, and that was a big blow to public safety throughout the state,” he said. “It’s especially troubling as we’re seeing more fires on the west side.”
Upthegrove noted that two years ago, for the first time, the state saw more ignitions west of the Cascades than east of the Cascades.
“And what we saw in Southern California could happen in Western Washington,” he said. “If we had an ignition on the west slope of the Cascades with strong easterly winds, we could have catastrophe on our hands.”
The Palisades Fire last winter began burning in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County on Jan. 7, and was driven by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds to destroy large areas of Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu over 24 days. It burned 23,448 acres, killed 12 people, and destroyed 6,837 structures.
What to expect for state’s wildfire season
The past winter was drier than normal, putting the state at a higher-than-average risk this wildfire season, Upthegrove said.
Individual incidents can’t be predicted, he said. The vast majority of wildfires – more than 80% – are human-caused.
Climate change is also driving a forest-health crisis that in turn is leading to a wildfire crisis, he said.
“And folks in Western Washington need to wake up to the reality that if we don’t invest in these core prevention and preparation services, then we’re going to have to pay a lot more – both in tax dollars and, potentially, in the loss of property and life,” Upthegrove said.
The U.S. Forest Service is a valuable partner to DNR, Upthegrove said, but some big shifts have been happening in recent days, including when it comes to staffing levels. Thanks to a federal hiring freeze and employee firings, it could mean that the state government will need to step in to fill some gaps.
Also, DNR receives roughly $200 million annually in federal grants, he said.
“A lot of our grants were just suddenly turned off. We couldn’t get reimbursements,” Upthegrove said. “Most have been turned back on, but we worry about the future.”
Some Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, have accused Trump of withholding crucial funding from blue states because of their political bent.
Robinson, the state Senate’s budget lead, said Washington lawmakers don’t have the ability to predict what the federal government might do with future cuts and make up for it by allocating funding. Nor does the state have the resources to backfill every lost federal dollar, she said.
But Robinson said that if a wildfire emergency were to happen here, Washington state would undoubtedly respond.
“The state will always find the resources to do that,” she said.
Despite all the belt-tightening and federal-level chaos, DNR feels like it’s “ready to go this summer,” Upthegrove said.
“We’re staffed up. We’re communicating locally with our federal partners. We’re positioning our assets,” he said. “We have funding for this first year. We’re going to do what it takes to keep people and property safe this summer.”