PORT ANGELES — Nearly 750 unintended fires have flared up across the state this fire season, state officials said, mentioning among them a rare burn in the lush Olympic rainforest.
Rivers of the North Olympic Peninsula are running well below normal, but drought conditions here are less severe than they are elsewhere in the state, officials said in a Friday conference call.
“Fires have started in areas rarely touched by wildfires, including Olympic National Park and islands in the Puget Sound,” said Mary Verner, deputy supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources.
“Conditions remain very dry and very hot on most days, especially in Eastern Washington. We will have an expensive fire season this year.”
About 80 percent of the 747 known fires that have started since June 1 were caused by people, Verner said.
Those fires have consumed 74,000 acres of land, about double the acreage of a normal year in mid-July.
The Paradise Fire in the Queets River drainage has been smouldering in the heart of the Olympic Mountains since it was sparked by lightning May 15.
That fire has consumed an estimated 1,612 acres of old growth forest as of Sunday.
Fire officials said Sunday that because of warmer, drier conditions, the fire is expected to grow by 100 to 200 acres over the next couple days.
“We don’t have wildfires, typically, on the Olympic Peninsula,” Verner said.
“An occasional roadside fire is about the normal workload that we have.”
Officials with the state departments of Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Health joined a U.S. Geological Survey spokesman and a state climatologist in the hourlong conference call with reporters.
Each official offered a unique perspective of the unusually hot and dry start to the summer.
“Our streams are off the charts, literally off the charts,” Ecology Director Maia Bellon said.
“Some tributaries in the Walla Walla basin have completely dried up for the first time ever.”
Fish and Wildlife Deputy Director Joe Stohr mentioned the curtailment of fishing on a short section of the Sol Duc River to protect chinook salmon.
The closure is from 200 feet downstream of the Sol Duc Hatchery outfall creek upstream to the concrete pump station at the hatchery.
The closure began June 18 and will remain in effect until further notice.
“We are actively monitoring the Olympic Peninsula,” Stohr said. “We expect it to get worse.”
Meanwhile, warm water and low flows are believed to have caused the deaths of about 80 six- to seven-foot-long sturgeon in the Columbia River.
Fishing and other water recreation activities account for $4.5 billion in economic activity.
“The stakes are very high,” said Stohr, who encouraged the public to remove rock dams in streams to help fish pass through.
The state this week began accepting grant applications for $16 million in drought relief funding for water supply projects that will provide immediate and long-term relief, Bellon said.
Even with that funding, Bellon said, the state will “continue to experience hardships this summer.”
“We are facing historic times,” Bellon said.
Department of Agriculture hydrogeologist Jaclyn Hancock said extreme heat and dry soils are putting stress on crops across the state.
Ginny Stern of the state Department of Health said water system customers are “paying attention and taking action” by conserving water amid the drought, which she described as “three months of August.”
U.S. Geological Survey spokesman John Clemens said 84 percent of stream-flow reporting stations showed below-normal flows as of Friday.
Fifty-two percent of the same stations were below normal in mid-July 2001, another drought year.
“This particular drought is more severe and is more widespread than previous years,” Clemens said.
State Climatologist Nick Bond said warm and dry weather combined with a meager winter snowpack delivered a “one-two punch to the streams and landscape.”
Bond predicted cooler temperatures next weekend followed by a warmer-than-normal August and September.
A strengthening El Nino, he added, would likely result in a warmer-than-normal winter.
“We should be prepared for a reduced snowpack at the end of next winter,” Bond said.
“But there is a possibility that we will dodge a bullet and end up with sufficient water for next summer.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
