Escaping embers: Spokane Fire wraps up wildfire prevention efforts on South Hill bluff and other public land across the city

Longtime area conservationist Jeff Lambert paused in the middle of the trail and used his hiking pole to gesture at a tight clump of more than a dozen saplings, all less than 6 inches across around the base.

“See, look at that,” Lambert said. “That’s way too close together.”

The former Friends of the Bluff president was on an afternoon hike with The Spokesman-Review on Spokane’s South Hill bluff to highlight recently completed work to lower the risk of urban wildfires, as well as to improve forest health.

If a wildfire tore through the natural debris that littered the ground, climbed up those low-hanging branches and got into the tree tops, it could rain ember showers on thousands of South Hill homes. Airborne embers can be carried by winds and deposited several miles downwind, onto rooftops, clogged gutters and leaf-littered front lawns.

“This is a proven thing that happens; it happened in Medical Lake,” Jeffries said, referencing the Gray fire that jumped Silver Lake in 2023.

Also that year, the Spokane Fire Department was awarded a $1.5 million U.S. Forest Service grant, in addition to $375,000 in a local match from Conservation Futures, Avista and the city of Spokane to thin, prune and dispose of wildfire fuel on public lands. The field reduction work had a special focus on “overstocked conifer forests of Ponderosa Pines, Douglas fir and brush,” according to the federal agency’s records.

Nick Jeffries, the agency’s wildland resource planner since 2022, said the project is part of a broader effort to complete long-needed wildfire fuel reduction work in Spokane County.

“When I was hired, we assessed what we had here at the city,” Jeffries told a crowd of South Hill residents gathered at a January Friends of the Bluff meeting earlier this month. “They were doing a good job of managing with the resources that they had, but the reality was, there wasn’t someone to manage the wild lands for the city, as far as fuel production goes.”

At that time, Jeffries said that more than 3,000 of the nearly 12,000 acres of city-owned lands in Spokane needed immediate wildfire fuel reduction treatment and an accompanying long-term maintenance plan. The 2023 funding helped the city complete treatment work on roughly 1,700 acres of public land across the city, including, most recently, more than 200 acres on the South Hill bluff.

The city intends to apply for more grant funding to treat the rest of that city land in the near future, Jeffries said.

The treated areas are easy to spot for those familiar with the labyrinth of trails crisscrossing the popular area. They look sparse by comparison: Conifer trees less than 8 inches in diameter were removed, as were branches less than 10 feet from the ground. The material was chipped or masticated, and then spread around to decompose.

The goal is to have more diverse forests, with trees spaced 15 to 20 feet apart. It’s better for the forest, the wildlife that live there and the residents living above the bluff, Jeffries said. Natural wildfires once did the work all on its own, but it’s been prevented by human intervention over the decades, leading to the high need for fuel reduction before the collective understanding of wildfires in the West evolved.

Jeffries said areas the city has treated like the South Hill Bluff, the Palisades or Beacon Hill likely saw fast-moving grass fires every five to 25 years that took care of the fuel buildup and left behind healthy landscapes, with tree spacing between 20 to 40 feet.

“We have suppressed all those fires; we have created the natural landscape that we live in now,” Jeffries said. “… What I’m trying to put on the ground is a footprint of what we can have, for good forest health, a wildfire safety that is going to suit us all, and a longevity for this forest, for my kids and your kids.”

A couple hundred feet below the intersection of High Drive and Manito Boulevard, Lambert gestured at the ground, where wood chips and soil are all that remains of the forest debris that was once there. Of the more than 200 acres treated on the bluff, the work crews masticated roughly 80 acres, and hand-cut and chipped around 130.

“They’ve done a good job here,” Lambert said. If you see, there’s no branches hanging low to the ground, which is how the fire climbs.”

Lambert said a recent survey conducted by Friends of the Bluff inquiring about priorities for the group highlighted how recent wildfires have brought the issue front of mind for residents across the county.

“I thought it might be trails or weeds or habitat protection,” Lambert said. “But the overwhelming, No. 1 issue was wildfires.”

While thankful for the work, attendees of the Friends of the Bluff meeting still had concerns. Some were worried about tracks or noxious weeds left behind by the machinery. The warm and wet winter made the work a bit muddier than it usually is this time of year, Jeffries said, but the machines are relatively light, and crews did their best to repair any damage.

“The equipment that we bring in is clean, and so whatever’s there is there,” Jeffries added. “I’m not saying that there’s not going to be any noxious weeds where we treated, but I am saying that we didn’t bring in any new noxious weeds, and I don’t see a lot of issues with them taking over after the treatments.”

The other main concern voiced at the meeting is just how raw the understory now looks in the masticated area, and whether the low ground foliage used by wildlife will return. Jeffries said the decades without fuel maintenance or natural wildfires had left too much debris for the native ground cover to thrive.

“That section had so much dead and downed overgrowth that there was no understory,” Jeffries said.

When the underbrush comes back, it may very well attract more wildlife than currently makes use of the land. It’ll be native plants without as much competition for sun and water. Jeffries added that thinning the trees also makes them more resistant to pests and disease like the bark beetles tearing through Manito Park, causing enough damage to necessitate the removal of around 200 trees.

There’s plenty of wildlife fuel in the region that still needs to be addressed, but is outside the city’s purview, Jeffries said. Last year, Spokane Fire joined the Spokane County Wildfire Mitigation Coalition, a collaboration of firefighting agencies, foresters, conservationists and government officials from across the county working to reduce the region’s propensity for a devastating wildfire.

The coalition successfully secured $9.2 million and $5.5 million for the Spokane Conservation District and Spokane Valley Fire Department, respectively, in the latest round of awards through the Forest Service grant program to complete similar work on county and Valley public lands.

“We are a coalition of partners collaborating to intentionally and strategically share resources, funds, knowledge and reduce catastrophic wildfire risk and enhance community resilience,” Jeffries said. “And I know it’s working. We’ve already got two other grants in the county.”

For private land owners interested in completing similar work on their properties, Jeffries said there is a state grant program that can help cover the costs, which is overseen by the Department of Natural Resources. Information on the assistance program for wildfire resilience and forest health, including potential benefits, eligibility requirements and answers to frequently asked questions, is available on the department’s website.

Regardless of plot size or location, homeowners can also take steps to make their home more resistant to wildfires, in the event one comes to the neighborhood. DNR can send experts out for a home risk assessment, and the agency also provides common best practices on how to protect a home online.

“The important thing is that we’re doing all this work on the bluff, and we’re doing all this work on the Palisades, and we’re doing all this work on Beacon, but guess what?” Jeffries said. “You’re still at risk. If you live in Spokane County, you’re probably at risk for ember showers at one point.”