Soon, new maps for the state of Washington will help show wildfire risks and hazards. But first, the team creating the maps is asking for help from locals.
In 2024, Washington lawmakers required the Department of Natural Resources to develop wildfire risk and hazard maps. The goal is to help the state better prepare for wildfires. The maps could be used in building codes and help plan where to focus forest thinning and prescribed burns.
“ We can't make these maps in a vacuum, sitting in Olympia with a really powerful computer. We can get a good start. But we definitely need the input from folks saying, ‘Does this make sense?’” said Matt Dehr, the department’s head wildland fire meteorologist.
Dehr spoke at a public listening session in Goldendale, Washington. The map-making team is traveling around the state, asking people about local risks. They’d also like to know how to divide neighborhoods within each county’s risk assessment.
“ Hazard is really a community, a neighborhood experience, less so than a parcel by parcel experience,” said Brigit Hill, the department’s GIS data manager.
Other maps divide things by pixels, she said, which has made it hard for people to use the maps.
The base-level risk maps will show the possibility of a wildfire harming things like homes or infrastructure, while the statewide hazard maps will show the likelihood of a fire happening in a particular area. If a community is in a high or very high hazard area, certain building codes would need to be changed to be more wildfire-resistant.
That takes a lot of data and a lot of analysis.
To start off, the department used a high-powered computer model from the U.S. Forest Service. They input real data to simulate current fire hazards in Washington.
“The way it works is it uses recent fire history and weather data to simulate 10 (thousand) to 50,000 fire seasons under current conditions,” Dehr said.
The team is traveling to communities across the state to avoid some of the missteps that happened when Oregon released its risk and hazard maps.
Washington’s risk and hazard maps are using a smaller portion of the wildland-urban interface code, which also helps, Dehr said.
The team said the maps shouldn’t affect insurance rates or coverage because most companies use their own modeling.
Angie Lane is managing the state’s project.
“Knowing where homes are, knowing what type of fuels you have, those kinds of things. And then you put that together with the hazard map and you've got some powerful information,” Lane said.
The department would like people to submit comments by the end of April. Draft maps are expected by July 1. The maps will be updated over time.
