forest fires

It’s been a slower start to spring in the Pacific Northwest, and the wine grape buds are just breaking on the vines of Washington vineyards.Linn Scott is…

(Runtime :50)The Biden Administration approved nearly $200 million in federal funding to help communities, including those in the Northwest, prepare for…

U.S. officials said Thursday they will try to stamp out wildfires as quickly as possible this year as severe drought tightens its grip across the West and sets the stage for another destructive summer of blazes.

In the decades since government restrictions reduced logging on federal lands, the timber industry has promoted the idea that private lands are less prone to wildfires, saying that forests thick with trees fuel bigger, more destructive blazes. But an analysis by OPB and ProPublica shows last month’s fires burned as intensely on private forests with large-scale logging operations as they did, on average, on federal lands that cut fewer trees.

Many homeowners who lost everything in a wildfire had no idea they were at risk. Only two states require disclosing wildfire risk to buyers in the house hunting process.

Over the past week, thousands of lightning strikes have sparked more than a dozen large wildfires in Oregon. For example, five fires are burning around the Warm Springs Reservation.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide emergency Wednesday to help with fires burning in on the Olympic Peninsula and in central and eastern Washington.

July started off cool, which lowered wildfire risks in Washington and Oregon. But a new outlook shows excessive heat and a lack of precipitation have helped to dry out fuels in southern and central Oregon and central Washington. In those areas that have been dealing with drought, the land is ready to burn.

A U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee on Tuesday asked federal lands officials about the nation’s readiness for wildfire season. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) warned that, with the calendar moving to mid-June, there isn’t much time left to prepare.

It's the first time since July that the state has been fire-free. "That's more than 240 days of fire activity" across the country's most populous state, New South Wales Rural Fire Service said.