How Washington State pioneered an “all hands, all lands” wildfire prevention strategy todayheadline

In January 2025, wildfire driven by hurricane-force winds ripped through Los Angeles County. Over a frightening 48 hours, embers soared for miles, destroying thousands of homes and killing 29 people. Preliminary estimates named these fires as the costliest in American history.

The twin forces of hotter, drier summers and decades of blanket fire suppression and fuel accumulation have combined to create unprecedented fire danger in the Western United States. Many landscapes have become far more overgrown than ever before, multiplying the wildfire risks.  

But in Washington, a strategic approach spearheaded by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), has focused on restoring forests to their historic balance, fostering community fire resilience, and upping firefighting resources. Launched in 2017, the state’s 20-year forest health strategic plan saves forests and homes while creating jobs and revenue along the way.

Fire, whether from lightning strikes or controlled burns by Indigenous cultures, is crucial to the health of many Western American landscapes. Many old-growth trees depend on fire to clear overgrowth that competes for soil nutrients, and some native trees and plants even have seeds that can only germinate once burned. But decades of complete fire-suppression policy, combined with human activity like indiscriminate logging, have created overgrown forests. 

“In the past, forest fires kept the landscape in a much more open condition, with fewer trees and less woody fuel,” said Derek Churchill, a DNR forest health scientist. “But what we have now is thousands of trees per acre that don’t belong there because we disrupted the ecosystem by suppressing all fire.” 

To combat this danger, the DNR starts with forest restoration. “That means building upon the progress this agency has made in wildfire prevention and response by boosting our prevention efforts, expanding our prescribed burn programs, and ramping up forest health treatments here in western Washington,” Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove said last month in a speech shortly after being sworn into office.

The DNR uses forest science and fire risk modeling to assess which communities and forests are at greatest risk. Working with state and federal agencies and local communities, it prioritizes restoration treatments like thinning and prescribed fire and preemptively creating fire breaks and barriers in those areas. The program, funded by a 2021 state bill that earmarked $125 million per biennium for wildfire mitigation, also supports job creation efforts like training programs for wildland firefighters. 

Partnerships help. Wildfires don’t respect property lines, but in many states, wildfire mitigation efforts are limited to state-owned lands, creating a huge barrier. “Wildfire is an existential emergency,” said Trevor McConchie, assistant division manager for federal lands at DNR. “So it doesn’t matter if it’s state, private, or federal land — we need to address it everywhere.” 

McConchie helped launch the state’s extensive collaboration with private landowners, tribes, and the federal government (which owns almost 29% of Washington’s land). This coordinated effort fosters what DNR terms an “all lands, all hands” approach: Washington currently has the nation’s largest federal forest management partnership. 

Since 2017, the state has treated almost 900,000 acres of forest. And its strategy is getting results: In the 2021 Schneider Springs fire, many trees in the areas previously treated with thinning and prescribed fire survived, while trees in the adjacent untreated forest died from the higher fire intensity. During the 2024 wildfire season, Oregon had roughly 2,000 wildfires start, while Washington had 1,400. But while a total of 1.9 million acres burned in Oregon (the most in the state’s history), the damage in Washington was limited to a comparatively small 310,000 acres. 

The DNR’s strategy also focuses on community resilience to reduce wildfire risks to homes and humans. It emphasizes proactively creating fire breaks and access roads around communities at highest fire risk while supporting local groups with home hardening efforts and community fire awareness.

Kelly Finnell, a Spokane County homeowner, credits the DNR’s community resilience program with saving her family’s home. The Finnells made “firewise” updates, like clearing trees and brush, to their property based on the DNR’s recommendations. Then, the 2023 Gray fire hit, forcing them to evacuate for five days. “We watched on our front door camera and saw the fire come up toward our house three different times,” she said in a video interview. “It saved our house…the program works.”

The state also increased its corps of full-time firefighters from 40 to 160, and increased the number of air firefighting resources it had access to in 2024 to 40. Other technologies, like drones and predictive fire risk modeling, augment the state’s firefighting resources. Seemingly simple changes also made a big difference — for example, allowing firefighters to request air support directly, and shifting to a wholly-owned leasing model for aircraft rather than sharing them with other states. 

Based on its risk modeling, the DNR can, to some degree, predict where fires are most likely to start and has begun pre-positioning firefighting resources in the most critical areas. “Our wildland firefighting teams have transformed wildfire response in this state, turning Washington into a national leader in the process,” Upthegrove said.

The revenue from the forest treatments helps support the restoration work. At Vaagen Brothers Mill, up to 25% of the wood the sawmill processes each year comes from the DNR’s forest projects. “We like purchasing timber from forest restoration projects because the economic benefits stay here in the state,” said Kurtis Vaagan, fourth-generation mill owner. “The money we pay for the wood funds state initiatives and services, and the projects provide jobs for local loggers and sawmill families.” 

Up to 30% of the DNR’s forest treatment projects generate enough revenue to fully cover the project’s costs. Any remaining revenue is earmarked for state initiatives. The DNR is also working to create other markets for the byproducts — wood from the state’s forest restoration projects has made its way into homes, schools, and commercial buildings. The recent Portland airport renovation was partly built with lumber from Washington’s forest thinnings. 

While wildfire continues to be a catastrophic threat, Washington’s approach shows that proactive, science-based strategies can be deeply effective. But Upthegrove remains cautious. “Every year, wildfire seasons stretch longer,” he said. “This is an all-of-Washington crisis that requires renewed resolve and revitalized commitment. This is about saving lives and homes.”

Administered by Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources manages more than 5.6 million acres of state-owned forest, range, commercial, agricultural, conservation, and aquatic lands. Of these, more than half are held in trust to produce income to support public schools and other essential services. State trust lands managed by DNR provide other public benefits, including outdoor recreation, habitat for native fish and wildlife, and watersheds for clean water.