Chelan County, Washington has been scorched repeatedly by some of the worst wildfires in state history, and local officials are now betting that teaching private landowners to set their own fires carefully is one of the best ways to stop the next catastrophic one.
The Cascadia Conservation District, a locally-led agency serving Chelan County, is hiring educators and outreach specialists to build awareness and hands-on expertise around prescribed fire on private lands. The work is funded by the Washington State Conservation Commission and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, and it explicitly targets the privately owned wildland-urban interface, where public-land-only fire treatment falls short.
The county's fire history makes the urgency plain. The 2014 Carlton Complex burned through neighboring Okanogan County as the largest wildfire in Washington's recorded history. A year later, the Wolverine and Chelan Complex fires swept through hills surrounding the town of Chelan itself. The region's orchards, wine country around Lake Chelan, and tourist economy anchored by Leavenworth's mountain village all sit in terrain primed for catastrophic fire after nearly a century of aggressive suppression that allowed fuel loads to accumulate across Western forests.
Source: NationGraph.
For most of the 20th century, putting out fires as fast as possible was federal and state policy. That doctrine left forests unnaturally dense and dry. After record-breaking fire seasons in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021, Washington made a significant policy turn. The Legislature passed a $125 million wildfire and forest health bill in 2021 that explicitly funded prescribed fire expansion, and followed up in 2023 with legislation creating a certified prescribed burn manager program and reducing liability for private landowners who burn, which had long been one of the biggest obstacles to adoption.
The state's 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan now targets treating 1.25 million acres in central and eastern Washington by 2037, a goal that cannot be met on public land alone. Cascadia Conservation District's role is to bring that effort to private property owners, who control a large share of the most fire-vulnerable land in the county.
Because Cascadia is a non-regulatory local entity, it carries more credibility with rural landowners than state or federal agencies often do. The project also aims to develop prescribed fire plans that cross the boundary between private and public land, recognizing that fire doesn't stop at a fence line.
The contract value was not disclosed in the solicitation. Cascadia expects to have a contractor selected by early June and work underway by mid-June. Landowners or community members with questions can reach project contact Patrick Haggerty at 509-881-7563.
