Subject: 2026 ACFL Wildland Fire Management Strategy and Prevention – Council 03/16/26 Public Hearing on the ACFL 2026 Forest Plan.
Subject: ACFL Wildland Fire Management Strategy and Prevention
From: Mark B. Nihart
The Forest Plan (FP) section on Wildland Fire Management is good. However, it should just be a short paragraph then link to Anacortes Fire Department’s (AFD) Wildland Fire Management Plan for the ACFL. The AFD owns the Wildland Fire Management in the ACFL.
The Anacortes Fire Department should specifically accomplish active and passive Wildland Fire Management in the ACFL including firefighting, ACFL Wildland Fire hazard shut down and an evacuation plan.
For consideration:
AFD should develop a tighter, active partnership/relationship with Volunteer Fire Departments, WA State Parks, Swinomish Fire Department, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and WA Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to create a Fidalgo Island Fire Fighting Consortium (FIFFC). The goal would be to have a strategy to handle multiple wildland fires/structural fires at the same time and large Fidalgo Island wide wildland fire/structural fire. And, specifically fire departments responding to a fire in or near the ACFL.
The city should take the lead in getting the DNR to install a PANO System (https://www.pano.ai/) in place on the top of Mt. Erie including sharing the cost among beneficiaries of the system – all of Fidalgo Island and part of Whidbey Island including WA Deception State Park. The AFD and the Mayor are familiar with this system.
AFD, PSE and the DNR should do a full assessment of potential wildland fire areas within the ACFL and all bordering areas. The assessment should have an action plan and budget to mitigate wildland fires in problem areas.
AFD and Anacortes Police Department should have a strategy and action plan to SHUT DOWN access to the ACFL complete with enforcement and fire watch teams patrolling the ACFL during HIGH fire days.
The city should pursue a fire detection system in collaboration with the DNR, Skagit County Fire Districts, WA State Parks, Samish Nation and Swinomish Tribe to be located on Mt. Eire. The technology is available and affordable and is already deployed in other areas in Skagit County by the DNR. Other detection systems such as drones and boots on the ground to monitor the ACFL during high fire season should also be deployed.
The AFD should have the resources and training to respond to and contain a wildland fire/structural fire before other resources are called in such as Skagit County Volunteer Fire Departments and ultimately the DNR. The AFD might have to wait 2 hours or 6 hours or 12 hours or 24 hours or days before other resources arrive, assuming they can arrive as traffic could snarl hwy 20.
Rational:
Climate Change is likely, has changed the weather on Fidalgo Island. It is supposed be drier. Skagit County is, has been in a drought for the last few years. The drier weather and likely more droughts will continue. Thus, we cannot use past data to plan for future events. The ACFL is likely to have a fire the question is where and how big AND if that fire will quickly spread into homes surrounding the ACFL.
The Anacortes Fire Department doesn’t have the staff (plus staff is in three different geographically locations and all the necessary special equipment if a major fire broke out in the rugged areas even just non roaded areas of the ACFL and spread through the treetops to houses bordering the ACFL. It is not likely the Anacortes Taxpayer will agree to higher taxes to adequately fund the AFD and APD for a “maybe” but likely fire sometime in the future.
It is not just possible a fire will break out in the ACFL a double-digit probability could be assigned. Also same goes a Fidalgo Island wide wildland fire where volunteer departments would be responsible and responding. And same goes for a Skagit County wide. The County is ripe for a large unmanageable fire. Human recreation everywhere (lots of it clueless or irresponsible), logging in the mid to upper Skagit and houses with firepits are everywhere in the forests.
The consequences of a large fire and or many small fires and everything in between is not just the destruction of forests and homes, and potential loss of life (human and wildlife) looms large. Follow-on consequences are home insurance rates likely would increase substantially and some homes near the ACFL might not be able to get insurance. Without access to home insurance or very high insurance rates would affect property values in the City of Anacortes.
The DNR cannot be everywhere at the same time and has limited resources so CALL the DNR is not a solution to a fire in the ACFL or Fidalgo Island.
Note: More and more articles in the media from many different sources are sounding the alarm of wildland fires becoming more common and larger and more dangerous and more destructive. Also, now articles are bringing the forefront the likelihood of many fires happening all at once overwhelming wildfire resources.
Risk Acceptance:
A serious risk assessment then a determination of an “acceptable” risk for a wildland fire needs to be done. In the case of wildland fire, the risk could be currently low to moderate but the impact of even a “small” wildfire that affects infrastructure in Anacortes (or on Fidalgo Island) will be large, a “medium” wildfire/infrastructure fire enormous, a “large” wildfire/infrastructure fire catastrophic. This is no small task.
Mitigation:
It is not likely the Anacortes Taxpayer will agree to higher taxes to adequately fund the AFD and APD for a “maybe” likely fire sometime in the future. So, some serious out-of-the-box, creative thoughts need to be developed then implemented plans are needed to do what is possible with the resources available in the most effective and efficient manner.
The time to do serious scenario planning for the unimaginable fire is now, not after it has occurred.
Warming Raises the Risk That Multiple Wildfires Strike at Once
This article was originally published by Vox and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The extreme heat, high winds, and severe dry conditions that produce towering, fast-moving flames that advance by the acre are not just becoming more common; new research shows that these factors are increasingly arising in multiple regions at the same time, creating the conditions for simultaneous wildfires around the world.
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers reported that the ideal conditions for major wildfires are now aligning across different parts of the world at more than double the rate they did nearly 50 years ago. Climate change is a major driver, accounting for about half of this increase. It’s the latest example of how humans are reshaping the nature of wildfires.
These changes have led to periods of inescapable smoke from blazes and more stress on firefighters, expanding the public health, economic, and social costs of infernos. As the climate continues to warm, these trends are likely to continue to worsen.
Wildfire smoke is already linked to tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S., and recent years have shown how this smoke can cross continents and oceans, polluting the air for people far away from the flames. East Coasters might remember how Canadian wildfires a few years ago bathed cities like New York and Philadelphia in an amber haze, triggering air quality warnings. One study found that the smoke from those fires contributed to 82,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, the efforts to contain these devastating blazes are devouring money, time, engines, tankers, and firefighters, often beyond what local fire departments can muster on their own.
But with more wildfires burning in different parts of the world at the same time, countries will have their own blazes to deal with and less outside help will be available.
The result is that we may see more years with multiple major blazes at the same time, and you might find it harder to find clear air to breathe for growing swaths of the year.
Cong Yin, the lead author of the study and a scientist at the University of California Merced, explained that research has been piling up showing that the weather conditions that favor major wildfires are becoming more common in different regions. Yin wanted to take a step back to see if there was a pattern that would emerge when he looked at the world as a whole.
Yin and his colleagues analyzed global climate and fire data between 1979 and 2024 and traced the fire weather index, a measure of fire dangers based on meteorological traits like temperature, wind, and moisture. The higher the index reaches, the greater the chances of a dangerous wildfire. The team drew on fire activity records from the Global Fire Emissions Database, which uses satellite data and ground-based measurements to track burned areas around the world. The team then counted the number of days where the fire weather index was in the 90th percentile in more than one region.
The results showed that over the study period, days with extreme fire weather conditions were increasing in places inside regions like North America but also seeing severe fire weather line up across far-flung areas like North America and Europe. That makes it harder to coordinate firefighting efforts across borders.
We’ve seen in recent years that countries with major fires have received needed help from neighbors, and from farther away. Teams from Canada and Mexico joined the fight against the Los Angeles wildfires last year, even bringing equipment like tanker aircraft. During the wildfires in Spain last summer, the Netherlands, France, and Italy also sent firefighting aircraft. In past fire seasons, South Africa has sent firefighters to Canada. The U.S., Australia, and New Zealand have a standing firefighting cooperation agreement to share personnel and equipment between the countries.
However, worldwide, the number of days where severe fire weather has occurred in multiple places at the same time has more than doubled over the majority of fire-prone landscapes. With more fire weather occurring at the same time, countries may not be able to lend out tools and personnel as much because they’ll need everyone on deck at home.
When Yin and his team looked closer at regions like North America, climate variability drivers like the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the periodic warming and cooling of the Pacific Ocean, tended to create fire weather conditions across the continent. The planet’s boreal regions — forested areas in northern latitudes — showed the highest levels of synchronized fire weather. They tend to experience extreme heat, little rain, and high winds at the same time more often. At the same time, the research identified areas where fire conditions are becoming less aligned, like Southeast Asia. The researchers think this is likely due to increasing humidity in tropical regions as temperatures rise. That can make it harder to achieve the ideal conditions for a major fire.
To figure out the role of climate change, the researchers constructed a model of a world where the climate hasn’t changed and compared it to the observed results of the world we’re currently in. They also calculated the role of natural climate drivers like the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. When they looked at the difference between the scenarios with and without warming, they found that climate change driven by humans has led to about half of the observed increase in synchronized fire weather since 1979.
Yin cautioned that there are some caveats to consider. Even when weather conditions are favorable to fire, they aren’t a guarantee that one will ignite. Fires also need fuel and a source of ignition. Without these two ingredients, even the most severe hot, dry, and windy conditions won’t lead to a blaze. “They are more difficult to predict or measure,” Yin said. “If we want to do a better job, we need to measure all these three dimensions.”
You may have already experienced how wildfires have become impossible to ignore, even when they’re far away, whether you’re breathing their smoke or paying for their damages. These results show that millions more people will likely be breathing dirty air with you when a major fire season gets underway.
Robert Field, a fire researcher at Columbia University, observed that when so many fires burn at the same time, the smoke can pose an even bigger public danger than the flames. Thousands of homes may burn, but millions of people end up breathing dirty air that takes years off their lives. And when these blazes ignite, the resources for containing wildfires may end up spread thin. That could lead to longer stretches of dirty air as well as more costly damages to property, which end up getting passed onto you through higher taxes and insurance rates.
The increasing threat from wildfires is also taxing for firefighters, who are not just facing more dangers to their lives and limbs, but also to their mental health. Field said the study shows that everyone should start preparing for the threat of simultaneous severe fire. “I really haven’t seen a paper like this on a global scale,” said Field, who was not involved in the study. “I think it’s a prelude to what’s coming.”
It’s clear then that we can’t simply rely on firefighting to cope with this problem.
Many of the ways we measure fire risk today systematically underrate the actual threats that you might face, especially as average temperatures continue to rise and as communities sprawl into fire-prone landscapes.
Getting an accurate assessment of wildfire risk is critical, even if it is inconvenient for your property values. We also need to invest more in managing the landscape through measures like controlled burns, which can worsen air quality but prevent even worse breathing problems down the line.
And of course, we need to reduce our impact on the global climate by curbing our emissions of greenhouse gases. But until then, keep an eye on the forecast and the air-quality index, and keep an N95 mask close.
—Umair Irfan, Vox
