The wildfire that didn’t happen
As expected, the 2026 wildfire season is getting off to an early start in Washington due to an extreme lack of snow fall over the winter and the resulting low snowpack. In May, a fire on the Wenas Wildlife Area in Kittitas County burned about 30 acres, and the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area that spans Grant and Adams counties has already had several small fires this year. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) manages both these wildlife areas.
Possible emergency avoided
The potential was there for another wildfire on WDFW-managed lands when a lightning strike started a small fire on the Sherman Creek Wildlife Area in northeast Washington on May 29. But it didn’t happen, thanks in part to forest management treatments that WDFW completed in the past.
Treatments like forest thinning and prescribed fires are aimed at improving and maintaining forest health, enhancing wildlife habitat, maintaining ecosystem diversity, and reducing the likelihood and severity of wildfires. You can read more about the positive impacts of forest treatments and how prescribed fire is restoring Washington’s forests, shrubsteppe, and prairies in a past WDFW blog.
“WDFW shares our forest health treatment information with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which serves as the state’s firefighting force for 13 million acres of private and state-owned forest lands. DNR uses that to track how treatments affect wildfire behavior and effects in areas where forest health treatments overlap with wildfire,” said Richard Tveten, WDFW forest management team lead. “Data shows that past forest health treatments significantly reduce the risk of large wildfires, saving the state money on firefighting, lost tourism revenue, and community and landscape recovery costs.”
In the case of the Sherman Creek lightning strike, past treatments worked exactly as they are supposed to. The prescribed fire reduced the amount of fuel on the ground, reducing the likelihood of a wildfire taking off quickly.
A fire was started but it was contained to 0.1 acre when it failed to grow quickly, thanks in part to prescribed burning conducted in 2014. Had the fire started to spread, it would have entered stands of trees that were also thinned in 2011 or 2018. In all, 6,718 acres of forest in that area have been treated since 2006 including 4,169 acres of thinning and 2,549 of prescribed fire.
A history of forest management working in northeast Washington
“This isn’t the first time forest management treatments helped with wildfire at the Sherman Creek Wildlife Area,” Tveten said. “In August 2018, the Boyds Fire started on the wildlife area under severe conditions. Forest management projects played a critical role in slowing and ultimately containing it by reducing vegetation density and excess fuel such as dry brush and woody debris.”
When the Boyds Fire reached the treated areas, it slowed in speed and intensity, allowing firefighters to build fire lines more quickly and safely and contain the fire before it could grow larger. At the time, a Fire Behavior Analyst with Pacific Northwest Complex Incident Management Teams, under the U.S. Forest Service’s Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, said that thinning and burning conducted on the wildlife area prevented uncontrollable spread of the Boyds Fire to the south and west.
Economic impacts of wildfires- and preventing them
Forest management practices not only protect and improve natural areas, they also have economic benefits. A recently published study estimates that, between 2017 and 2023, U.S. Forest Service fuel-reduction treatments prevented $2.8 billion in property and air quality damage; each dollar invested in fuel-reduction resulted in a $3.73 return.
Large wildfires generate considerable smoke pollution, which has detrimental impacts on recreation. A study on smoke impacts to recreation found that, between 2008 and 2017, 33 million camping trips (5.1% of all trips) were impacted by smoke in Washington, resulting in 300,000 cancellations and $3.5 billion in lost economic value. Fuel reduction practices prevent large fires, reducing their impact on recreation, air quality, properties, and rural economies.
Budget deficit impacts to forest management practices
Despite these two recent victories, WDFW is facing significantly reduced funding for forest thinning and prescribed fires as a result of legislatively directed budget reductions associated with the state’s ongoing deficit. In 2025, the legislature cut WDFW’s forest health budget by 80% (from $3 million per year to $600,000 per year) and failed to restore it in the 2026 session. As a result, WDFW is losing three-quarters of its’ forest health team to layoffs. The pace and scale of forest health treatments on WDFW-managed lands will slow significantly as a result. This is very concerning considering that the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has declared a drought declaration for the fourth year in a row in either part or all of Washington and it is the fourth statewide drought emergency since 2015.
WDFW manages more than a million acres of land and hundreds of water access areas throughout the state. By actively managing lands, restoring habitats, and preserving wild places, the Department serves as stewards for Washington’s natural ecosystems, protecting the state’s land and water for its wildlife and people.
For more information about WDFW’s forest health efforts, visit the WDFW website.
