WA Fire Season Outlook: Warm, Dry Summer Spells Trouble

SEATTLE — Last September, massive wildfires burning in California and Oregon kicked up a super plume of smoke which blew north, smothering Puget Sound in a haze of ashy skies.

And it could happen again this year, according to NOAA forecasters.

"Looking at the forecast coming up here we can certainly get a feel for, we might be on the precipice of a pretty significant season," said National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Reedy at a news conference Tuesday discussing the fire season.

NOAA released its Summer 2021 Weather Outlook this week, and it looks rough, predicting widespread drought across the western U.S., and hotter, drier than usual weather for the Pacific Northwest. Conditions are already bad — NOAA says a dry May and the persistent drought levels mean fire season could ramp up quickly in the coming weeks — but the drought is only expected to get worse for Puget Sound as the summer marches on.

"June, this month, will be important in gauging how soon fire season will start," Reedy said. "A look out the window and a look at the forecast should be telling us that it's probably going to be a bit of an early start this year."

When it does begin, forecasters say to expect an "above normal" fire season. The PNW had it's worst fire season ever in 2020, burning more than 1,983,971 acres in Washington and Oregon, and while this summer's season may not burn as much land, forecasters say an above average season is part of the "new normal", as six of the past ten years have made the top ten wildfire seasons by acres burned.

"Get into that good practice of heading into [fire] season thinking it will be an active one unless there are strong indicators otherwise," Reedy said.

Fire season is also predicted to stick around longer this year. Typically, the season lasts from July to September, but the warm weather is poised to drag out fire season 2021 even longer than usual.

If there is a silver lining, it is this: the fires themselves are likely to burn outside Puget Sound. That's cold comfort for those living east of the Cascades and won't prevent smoke from blowing into Western Washington, but fires are much more likely to spark up in Eastern and Southern Washington, California, Idaho and in the Midwest.

"The fact that we did have a pretty active winter and early spring period is kind of ... acting at least like a little bit of a shield for us," Reedy said.

The dry, warm weather also means less chance for thunderstorms, and fewer opportunities for lightning strikes to spark wildfires. That means humans will remain one of the leading causes of wildfires this fire season — a good reason to take some time now to read up on wildfire prevention before the season kicks into high gear.