The green shoots of spring can't hide
the burned trees and downed timber
from an important wildfire near the
end of last summer. I think it's an
eye opener. It's it's, you know.
Summer grade showed us something
that I think a lot of us.
Maybe didn't think would happen it it
opened our eyes woke us up to that
the West side of Washington is not
immune to a large scale wildfire,
but it sounds like it could have been worse.
It could have been, you know.
I think we easily could have
if we had not had everything
come together at the right time.
John Parkinson recently took
over as the new Fire Chief for
East Pierce Fire and Rescue,
but he was on duty on that
Windy Labor Day weekend in 2020.
The Sumner grade fire is named for
the steep long climb along Hwy
410 heading toward the Cascade
Mountains that weekend for the
state as a
whole. Yes, was horrible, yes. And
then it came here, Yep.
Yep, and I think I think one of the
most helpless feelings that I recall
listening to the radio was are on
scene incident Commander after he
had already requested a second alarm,
which was early in the fire within just a
few minutes asking our dispatch center.
If I asked for a third alarm,
am I going to get any resources?
And the quick answer back was
there are no additional resources
so no additional resources in the
county or neighboring counties.
So basically you're on your own
Intel until further notice.
If the fire was sparking,
it jumped the highway and was
sparking in the neighborhood
South of the neighborhood at
the bottom of the neighborhood.
King 5 spoke with residents
Tamera and Kyle Casara,
after the worst had passed.
Apparently at one
point they were deciding whether they
should just let the neighborhood go
because it was so bad and they stayed
and they stayed for strangers and and,
you know, prior to their community
and and the heroism is insane. It was
that close is the person
who is running this division.
I still recall him pointing to a house
down the road here and this House,
saying, you know these houses or
undefensible we're going to lose them
and within minutes they started burning.
We didn't have the resources,
he pointed to a number of other
houses and said and these houses
were not going to be able to protect.
Also and again, it was almost like
a scene out of a movie with just
at the at just the right minute.
A new engine would show up just as
fire was creeping towards the house,
just as fire was creeping towards
another house.
A helicopter would fly over and
you'd see them dump a bucket a walk.
Water on top of the house.
We had a ladder truck in one of the
cul-de-sac's basically working like a
a yard sprinkler spinning in circles
defending houses.
In the end only two houses were lossed.
He says many others had fire damage.
They got lucky. The summer grade
fire has become a benchmark for
the fire potential here on
the West side of the state.
Ah, one of the fire departments
that helped out on Sumner grade
was Orting Valley and in May on
a high altitude logging site,
still subject to snowfall.
Orting Valley provided training
for fire districts and fire
departments in Pierce,
King and other counties. Are
you seeing more fires in your
area of service than you did,
say, five years ago?
20 absolutely. Yeah.
In my 19 years in the fire service,
I've seen a tremendous growth in
wildfire and interface. Type fire
Jake Wegley helped put together
this training program.
It's not a straight line,
but the trend is clear and the
decades since 2010 the number of
fires starts and the number of acres
burned in Washington has gone up.
2015 stands out as the worst
well over 1,000,000 acres.
As that year stands as a record.
Drought 2020, the second most acres,
lost the 813 thousand acres more than
13 times the area burned in 2010 and
in two of the last three years the
Department of Natural Resources says.
40% of the fire starts have occurred
on the West side of the state,
so the training we're
getting today will end up with our red
card or wildland training. We're going
to be learning how to dig,
line clean up hot spots,
and maybe put some water on the fire as well.
Trevor Painter is one of those
firefighters now adding wildland skills.
You know our fire season is starting.
Charlie Burns retired after
fighting fire for DNR for 47 years.
Now he's helping Orting Valley
deal with a growing reality.
Canada happened here.
Yes, it can happen here
and it does happen here.
And this is part of the problem.
Western Washington has a bit of an image
problem because it is so gorgeous. It is
so lush it is so green.
But here's the issue.
Even where we are in
Edmonds in a forested park.
What is down here on the ground
is already very, very dry.
Back to you guys,
which is a huge concern as you said.
So Glen, you talked a lot about resources.
What's the bigger picture that our
state has to deal with this season?
Well, the bigger picture is we
can't just lookin at Washington
in isolation when you talk to
the Commissioner of Public Lands,
Hillary Franz and others,
they will point out that because we have
fires in other parts of the country,
especially California,
Oregon, often it's Arizona.
Has it already been this season?
A lot of the resources we need are
already committed to these other places,
and as we move along through
this project this week,
you'll hear how more money
is being raised by the state.
And through the state legislature
to try and put Washington
in a better position
to fight its own fires. Glenn, thank you.