Under normal circumstances, prescribed burns in lower elevation mountainous areas near Yakima and elsewhere across the state would be underway or on the docket. Prescribed or controlled burns are intentionally set fires in a designated location; the intent is to reduce and manage fire-prone undergrowth vegetation. Such burns don’t necessarily prevent wildfires, but they make them easier to manage.
Indeed, the state Department of Natural Resources has a plan to burn 10,000 acres in Eastern Washington by 2021 as it seeks relief from a series of brutal wildfire seasons. The 2018 season, for instance, saw more than 350,000 acres go up in smoke before the end of August at a cost of a reported $112 million to suppress.
Had a plan to burn 10,000 acres, that is. COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the rogue coronavirus, has stopped prescribed burns for now — including 496 acres in Yakima and Kittitas counties that were set for this spring — because fire and health officials agree that smoke from such fires could make people more vulnerable to the deadly disease.
In addition, it’s difficult to practice anything close to social distancing at a campsite for firefighters working a prescribed burn. Many early-season training sessions for firefighters were canceled as well. These decisions are understandable yet troubling; we must hope that firefighters’ limited training doesn’t come back to haunt them in the months ahead.
Of course, wildfires have no respect for the new health rules we’re all trying to follow, and the 2020 wildfire season is already here. Fire officials have connected with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to consider policy changes that would further protect firefighters’ health, especially with the need for social distancing.
However, fire concerns are not limited to lightning strikes that ignite hundreds or perhaps thousands of acres of mountainside pine and fir. Just as members of the general public face COVID-19-related challenges over travel, jobs, recreation, worship, recycling and more, so, too, must they be ever vigilant with fire.
“The public being extra cautious and preventing (wildfires) is becoming more and more critical for us,” said George Geissler, DNR fire operations supervisor, in a recent Herald-Republic story. “I’m asking everybody to please be careful.”
Last week, the Department of Natural Resources issued burn restrictions on all DNR-protected lands in Central and Eastern Washington. Concerned with dry conditions and a forecast of gusty winds, the agency banned all outdoor burning until further notice, citing the very real possibility that gusty winds can cause the most seemingly innocent of fires to grow rapidly and lose containment.
“During the COVID-19 crisis, firefighters and first responders are working hard to stay healthy to ensure their readiness to respond to fires and other emergencies,” the DNR memo says. “The public’s compliance with this temporary burn ban will help them remain healthy and ready to respond to an emergency.”
In the same vein, trash burning and agriculture-related fires are not uncommon in the Yakima Valley. But again, where there’s fire, there’s smoke, which is one reason the state Department of Ecology has asked all Washingtonians to rethink their outdoor burn plans.
“Local fire departments and first responders are doing everything they can to protect their own health so that they are ready to protect others,” says an April 2 Ecology memo. “Many people in Washington communities are also extremely concerned about their respiratory health. So before starting an outdoor burn of any type, please consider the potential impacts on your neighbors and on local emergency responders, and postpone or cancel your burn if possible.”
Right now, there isn’t much of our everyday lives that COVID-19 isn’t tainting somehow. It’s a serious, deadly and ugly disease; perhaps you or someone you love has been less fortunate than others. But so far, most of us are coping as best we can, doing the big things and little things to keep ourselves and others healthy.
Fire is a big thing, and we must respect the concerns and guidelines from our state agencies and officials. Do your part to keep our firefighters and other first responders safe and healthy and our forests and wildlands unscathed.
Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Bob Crider and Bruce Drysdale.
———
©2020 Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.)
Visit Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.) at www.yakima-herald.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
