By Bill Lucia | Editor
Welcome back to the Daily Standard's weekend edition, where we recap some of the week's top stories.
Number of the week: 425,000
That’s roughly how many acres have burned in wildfires across Washington this year, according to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. The agency says it’s the fifth largest amount of acreage burned in a year this century. “This is an extraordinary fire season,” Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove told the Standard.
Yesterday, the National Weather Service issued a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning for today’s fire conditions east of the Cascades. This is the highest alert for weather-related fire risks. It’s extremely dry, large fires are already burning, and winds are expected to gust up to 50 mph in some places.
Officials have described the current wildfire situation as akin to late August. “We have deployed all of our resources,” Upthegrove said. “But we are stretched thin.”
Burn ban: Gov. Bob Ferguson this morning declared a statewide wildfire emergency and imposed a statewide burn ban.
A firefighting helicopter flies near smoke from the Sinlahekin Fire in Okanogan County. The fire has burned over 26,000 acres. (Photo courtesy of Department of Natural Resources)
On the ground: One of the large blazes in the state is the Modrite Fire. Sparked by lightning in mid-July, it’s more than 40,000 acres and burning south of Inchelium, along the Columbia River. The Spokesman-Review has coverage of area residents defending against the flames, including Joe Pakootas Jr., who’s been driving around with a water tank in his pickup truck extinguishing spot fires over the past couple of weeks. “I’m really tired,” Pakootas told The Spokesman. “I’m in that robot stage.”
On Friday, Upthegrove said Gov. Bob Ferguson approved his request to deploy 100 to 110 National Guard members to assist with firefighting. These members have special wildfire training. The plan was to send them this weekend to the Little Giant Fire, burning about 30 miles northwest of Leavenworth. The Department of Natural Resources and the National Guard have a combined 35 aircraft to aid in wildfire response.
In the air: A new study finds that while air pollution from sources such as cars and industry has significantly declined in the U.S., recent increases in wildfire smoke have offset those gains and could be contributing to negative outcomes for pregnant women and babies such as low birth weight and preterm births.
For information on local wildfire smoke conditions, see Washington Smoke Blog.
Flashback: It was just over a decade ago, in 2015, that Washington experienced its largest fire season on record, with more than 1 million acres burned. Three wildland firefighters died that year responding to the Twisp River Fire.
READ MORE:
‘Truly dangerous’: Dry, windy forecast east of WA’s Cascades sparks dire wildfire warning | By Aspen Ford
News tips, feedback, questions? Email us: [email protected]
By Jerry Cornfield
A nearly yearlong investigation into the conduct of Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission members is finally complete.
Its conclusion: A group of commissioners routinely disregarded government transparency laws, skirted conflict of interest rules, and sparred with agency leaders, but their actions and behavior did not amount to serious misconduct.
The violations of public records and open meeting laws were partly due to commissioners’ lack of understanding and training, the report said. As for tense interactions with Department of Fish and Wildlife leaders, these revealed “a significant breakdown in trust” but did not amount to harassment or mistreatment.
“In each instance, the evidence stops short of establishing the most serious forms of the alleged misconduct,” wrote Chiedza Nziramasanga of Transformative Workplace Investigations, who conducted the inquiry.
The report notes: “The record reflects a Commission navigating a period of significant institutional pressure, marked by escalating outside advocacy, high-volume public records litigation, ideological disagreement, and deteriorating relationships between commissioners and department leadership.”
Gov. Bob Ferguson ordered the investigation. Its cost grew to $80,000 as it dragged on. Ferguson’s office said Friday he hadn’t yet reviewed the findings.
Big picture: There’s been brewing interest among some lawmakers and others during the past couple of years in a potential overhaul of the commission. We’ll be watching to see how the findings here factor into those discussions.
Don’t forget to vote!
The deadline to deposit your ballot in a drop box is 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
At this point, officials recommend against sending your ballot in the mail, since it needs to be postmarked by Aug. 4 to count.
The secretary of state’s office has information about the primary election here.
You can find our voter guide here on key races.
And, if you’re looking for a drop box or voting center, you can check out this map.
We’ll have coverage on our site Tuesday night when vote counts start coming in.
Where’s the governor?
Gov. Bob Ferguson speaks during an event on Tuesday at the governor’s mansion, where he hosted Washington state’s champion high school fastpitch softball teams, along with University of Washington softball coaches. (Photo by Aspen Ford/Washington State Standard)
Thank you to our readers who sent in feedback about whether to continue the “Where’s the governor?” feature in our Saturday newsletter. With a few exceptions, those who weighed in suggested we keep it going, so we will. “It's good to know what he's up to, who he's meeting with, and where he's traveling. The governor is a public official and we, his constituency, have a right to know. Transparency is best for everyone,” said one reader.
There was critical feedback, too. For instance, some took issue with the occasionally snarky tone. Noted. There were also concerns about the governor’s safety and publishing information about where he’ll be ahead of time. “In recent years, officials at all levels have faced increased security and privacy concerns for themselves and their families, leading to limits on detailed publication of itineraries,” a reader emailed. That’s true, and we take this seriously. Much of what we’ve focused on is backward-looking. We’ve rarely included location specifics for the governor’s appearances in advance, typically doing so only when that information is widely known.
Interestingly, after last week’s newsletter, the governor’s office sent out one of its more robust public calendars to date on Monday.
It showed a meeting Tuesday with General Matter, a company seeking to build a uranium enrichment facility at the Hanford nuclear reservation, in central Washington. One of our reporters caught up with Ferguson later that day and asked about the meeting, but he declined to provide a recap. As far as we know, Ferguson has never publicly described his views on nuclear facilities in Washington state in detail.
This week’s schedule also showed meetings with a half-dozen Democratic state legislators: Reps. Debra Lekanoff, Chris Stearns and Jamila Taylor, and Sens. Manka Dhingra, Liz Lovelett and Claudia Kauffman. Ferguson is set to meet Monday with Rep. Natasha Hill.
Calendar information obtained through a records request shows a July 22 Zoom meeting about “cell phone legislation.” The governor said last month he planned to back a bill in the upcoming legislative session for a bell-to-bell cellphone ban in public schools.
Ferguson told The Seattle Times earlier this week that he was not to blame for the delay of a media briefing on Sunday, after a shooting at Seattle Center left three people dead and four wounded. The governor’s schedule records show a series of three check-ins and updates that night on Zoom and Teams between 8 p.m. and 9:50 p.m.
IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK
Legal wrangling on the initiative that aims to repeal the state’s new income tax could reach the state’s high court before Washington voters consider it this November.
Washington is seeking an estimated $76 million in federal reimbursements for repairs to highways damaged in December’s historic flooding.
Greenhouse gas emissions will need to plummet over the next three and a half years to comply with ambitious state climate regulations.
A bipartisan group of nearly four dozen Washington lawmakers is urging the state to maintain a program considered vital among parents of children with developmental disabilities.
Drivers with low incomes will soon be able to pay less to travel on two of Washington’s newest tolled roadways.
Washington’s Department of Agriculture did not complete hundreds of mandated inspections at egg production and packing plants for the past two years, posing health risks to consumers, according to a new state audit.
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