News / Clark County News

Early forecasts indicate relatively normal wildfire season

Cooler, wetter weather on heels of record-breaking heat could help, officials say

By Andy Matarrese, Columbian environment and transportation reporter

Published: May 19, 2016, 7:50pm

A wildfire near Twisp in August claimed the lives of three firefighters. (Associated Press files)

Following last year’s Northwest fire season that burned an area larger than the state of Delaware, early forecasts indicate the region should see a relatively normal wildfire season.

John Saltenberger, a meteorologist at the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, said forecasters’ outlook leans toward a typical fire year in Oregon and Washington, even with expected hot weather.

Worldwide, 2016 had the warmest April on record, and the six months preceding April also saw record-breaking heat, according to NASA. Saltenberger said climate forecasters expect that pattern to continue, resulting in above-average temperatures through much of the West.

Even though record-breaking heat has dented the snowpack that built up over the winter, enough precipitation and an expected cooler and wetter last half of May could help push back the fire season, he said.

Forecasters also predict a high chance of current El Niño conditions — a band of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator — transforming into a La Niña, a band of colder water near the equator. Historically, La Niña has led to weather patterns that would suggest a lower likelihood of above-average temperatures through much of the Northwest, Saltenberger said.

La Niña is favored to develop through the summer and continue through the fall and winter, he said, leading him to expect a fire season with a normal potential for large fires. Still, a normal season does not preclude large fires, he cautioned.

Wildfires are considered large when they’re more than 100 acres (about 1/6 of a square mile) in timber or 300 acres (about 1/2 square mile) in grass, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, which manages firefighting strategy throughout the region. The center recorded an average of about 74 large fires from 2006 to 2015 in the Northwest. The region had 39 large fires in 2010 and 101 in 2015.

Saltenberger said the last two years saw extensive drought conditions around Oregon and Washington, and they were coupled with extremely hot weather during the summer. Last year’s fire season in the Northwest was the most severe in recorded history, with the U.S. Forest Service pointing to climate change as the catalyst for the increase.

Oregon and Washington saw more than 4,600 wildfires, burning more than 2,800 square miles. Three firefighters were killed in Twisp, and fires burned 343 homes in Washington, fire officials said. Washington saw its largest wildfire ever in 2015, the 476-square-mile, multi-fire Okanogan Complex.

It’s too soon to tell how this year’s rising temperatures, even with the improved snowpack, will affect vegetation, said Mike Powell, a fire management analyst at the Northwest coordination center. Fire forecasters won’t have a better idea of that until they can look at rainfall from April through June.

“It should be fairly normal at this point in time, is what were seeing,” he said. “A very hot and very dry spell that lasts a decent amount of time could change that.”

Saltenberger said he has seen plenty of years when a wet year gave way to a huge fire season, or when a drought year yielded a calm season, which is a big part of why weather forecasting is so limited.

“Preceding conditions, drought or abundance of snow can help set the stage for what fire season might be like, and I think last year’s experience shows us that,” he said. “But the real driver of fire season severity is the weather during the fire season, the day-to-day convergence of all the required elements, such as high fire danger, overlaid with hot, dry, windy conditions, overlaid with a lighting storm or two.”

National outlook

Nationwide, wildfires destroyed more than 4,600 structures in 2015, including about 2,600 homes. Those fires burned more than 15,800 square miles, about 150 percent of the 10-year average.

“We keep setting records we don’t want to see beat,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement from the U.S. Forest Service. “Over the last 10 years we’ve seen 16 of the most historically significant wildfires on record.”

Fire seasons are an average of 78 days longer than they were in 1970, and, on average, wildfires are burning twice as much land, according to the Forest Service, which points to climate change as the culprit.

Fighting the fires also is becoming more expensive. Federal firefighting costs grew to more than $2 billion in 2015.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, the federal government, between the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, plans to field an estimated 14,500 firefighters, 1,600 engines, 700 helicopters and up to 26 large air tankers this wildfire season.

National outlook

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