Skamania County Wildfire Protection Planning
After the Tunnel Five Fire in July, 2023
Along with partners and community members, Underwood Conservation District is preparing a new “Community Wildfire Protection Plan” (CWPP). The plan is in progress now, and UCD will soon be asking for the community at large to give their thoughts to make it as effective as possible. Watch this space for the draft plan and a survey – soon!
The CWPP is part of UCD’s long-running effort to help people and small communities in Skamania County strengthen their properties against the growing wildfire threat. UCD has invited partners to help with this crucial planning effort, ranging from county commissioners and utilities to all the county’s fire districts and other emergency responders. The work is involved but the goal is clear: Create a CWPP for Skamania County that will help its communities be stronger and more resilient to wildfire.
UCD is funded for this and other direct wildfire preparedness support, such as improving defensible space, chipping and community outreach, through Skamania County’s Rural Schools and Communities Act - Title III funding and a grant from the Washington State Conservation Commission (WSCC).
Overall Project Goal and Purpose:
The goal of the Skamania County CWPP is to include local governments, fire departments, and relevant experts and partners in a collaborative process of identifying the highest priority locations for fuel treatments and reduced structural ignitability across Skamania County. The process will emphasize community-adjacent fuel break treatments and individual responsibility of landowners and homeowners. The final plan will reflect community goals and values as well as regional fire behavior, on-the-ground conditions, and critical infrastructure in Skamania County. Through the completion of a county-wide CWPP, project funding will be more available to implement priority projects described in the CWPP (a requirement for current Community Wildfire Defense Grants).
So why write a new plan that covers the entire county? Several reasons:
Changing conditions: consistent climate change has yielded longer, more erratic fire seasons; wildfires west of the Cascades have become more common; and populations in the wildland-urban interface of Skamania County have grown.
New resources: Newly established federal and state wildfire mitigation funding is more readily available. New resources (personnel, programs, emphasis and funding) for wildfire mitigation from state and federal sources bring more consistent support to these efforts and to UCD.
Government support: Our federal and state forestry authorities are signaling that CWPPs should be written at the county-scale as newly updated county-wide CWPPs open doors for significant project implementation funding.
Growing programs: UCD is expanding its wildfire resilience program to enable community-scale mitigation projects. With increased support and more consistent access to funding, UCD, our partners and stakeholders will increase our effectiveness in assisting Skamania County residents and communities in adapting to greater wildfire hazards.
Thus, UCD is convening willing partners from key local governments (Skamania County, US Forest Service, DNR, and the several fire districts), along with other technical experts, agencies, and local concerned citizens. We are facilitating a process with robust local engagement and technical insights to create an actionable new county-wide CWPP. Success would yield an engaged set of partners in wildfire preparedness and resilience, and a set of priority projects for them to work on to meaningfully increase defensibility and resilience against wildfires in the wildland-urban interface of Skamania County.
Timeline:
Our goals for accomplishing this work involve the following timeline:
Early June 2024 – Key stakeholders and partners invited and engaged
June 2024 – January 2025 – Meetings with partners and writing of CWPP; includes:
synthesis of data and resources
identifying a criteria for project prioritization
implementation of prioritization process
stakeholder review of prioritized project list and draft plan
community engagement and public input on draft plan
public and partner review of proposed CWPP
Final CWPP adopted by relevant jurisdictions
Early 2025 – Provide opportunity for public review and comment of Draft CWPP
June 2025 – Final CWPP adopted by relevant jurisdictions
Project Background:
CWPPs have evolved in the past several years, nationwide and in Skamania County, where they have been in place for more than 15 years, but not actively referenced or utilized in the past decade. The plans began with a Klickitat/Skamania combined CWPP (2006; steering committee meeting notes are located here. Soon after, various agencies, technical experts, and concerned citizens, facilitated by WSU Extension forester Ole Helgerson and Skamania County wildfire prevention coordinator Gail Fullerton, produced CWPPs for seven separate communities in Skamania County, between 2006-2009. The plans were based on fire districts and associated communities: Beacon Rock, Greater Stevenson, Greater Wind River, Little White Salmon, Swift, Underwood, and West End. All are housed online here: https://www.dnr.wa.gov/community-wildfire-plans. These community-scale CWPPs will provide an important foundation for an updated county-wide CWPP (officials consider CWPPS older than 10 years as out of date), with additional updates based on projects accomplished over the past decades, changing fire conditions, recent wildfires, and emerging wildfire science.
These 2006-2009 plans included background and hazard analyses and local technical knowledge resulting in robust proposed project lists. Project prioritization was rudimentary; nearly all projects were rated “high” priority. Projects had no owners, no lead agencies or committed groups, nor funding or deadlines – they were good ideas without much impetus. For several years, Washington DNR and Underwood Conservation District staff continued to host monthly or quarterly meetings with representatives from various CWPPs; but attempting to prioritize and act on seven different project lists, without consistent funding, was challenging.
UCD and DNR implemented fuel break projects together around the county on several sites between approximately 2012 and 2016. Due to staff turnover at DNR and inconsistent funding, these partner efforts slowed. UCD has continued to implement a robust wildfire education and assistance program, mainly with Skamania County Title III funds. This work has focused on individual homeowners and general education and outreach, and modest defensible space projects in small communities, such as a mobile chipper program to help reduce residential wildfire fuels.
In 2021, Skamania County completed a Hazard Mitigation Plan with involvement from multiple jurisdictions including county fire districts, public utility districts, school districts, and city administrations. This plan can be found here and discusses previous CWPPs (see pages 21-22). While the HMP includes brief high-level assessment of wildfire hazards, an updated county-wide CWPP will provide specific mitigation projects and other desired resource improvements (e.g., updated radios for rural volunteer fire districts), assign project leads, and describe means for successful implementation.
Resources:
Demystifying Insurance: Washington State Fire Adapted Communities Resource Guide .