Public Lands Commissioner calls for nearly double the state’s firefighting budget

Published 3:44 pm Thursday, October 29, 2015

Peter Goldmark, Washington Public Lands Commissioner and head of the Department of Natural Resources, is requesting a $24 million budget increase from the state legislature in its upcoming session to help better prepare and train state firefighters for the fire season and to reduce the massive costs associated with responding to wildland fires.

“The Evergreen State is in danger of becoming the Wildfire State,” Goldmark said during a Thursday morning press conference on the budget request. “The past two seasons have brought this to grim reality, in 2014 and 2015 combined, nearly 1.5 million acres burned across the state. That’s nearly 3.5 percent of the land mass of the state.”

In his speech, Goldmark said professional firefighters are needed to carry out training and requested more people, modern equipment, and more safety tools so that firefighters won’t be lacking resources and will be as safe as possible when combating wildfires. Currently, the state budget for fire fighting is $27.2 million.

“The request I’m making to the legislature in the upcoming session is for $24 million,” Goldmark said. “It’s an essential, small investment, to meet the urgent need that’s present on the landscape so that we can protect forests, communities, and habitats.”

Responding to the increasing numbers of wildfires in recent years has run up a huge bill for the state. Goldmark said that a budget increase would lead to better, more efficient work from firefighters around the state, reducing the potential costs each year.

“It’s what I believe is the first step that we must take to increase our firefighting capacity both at the local level and the statewide level,” he said. “So that this investment, ahead of a fire season, can increase our odds of keeping the expenditure down. This is an early way to invest to keep a larger cost from occurring at the back end.”

The large costs at the back end have reached $300 million.

“The total bill for this past season’s fires, for all jurisdictions, across the state is over $300 million. Roughly $160 million of that is the state’s share, the most expensive ever,” Goldmark said. “Our share of that total expense is north of $130 million, a new record. We must take action.”

The proposed budget increase is divided into chunks to address certain issues. Approximately $7 million is proposed for joint training which includes DNR, fire district volunteers, tribes, and National Guard. Other sections include $6 million for improved wildfire prevention and fuel reduction and another $6 million for modern equipment for first responders.

“We together will not allow our evergreen state to become the wildfire state,” Goldmark said. “Not on our watch.”