WACD Reading List

Ian Rickert, acting fire management specialist with the Bureau of Land Management Oregon-Washington State office and the United States Department of Agriculture/Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region office said in a late August report that there are still areas of Washington and Oregon that still have a considerable distance from being in the clear as high temperatures and low humidity continues to affect those regions.

While the annual State of the Sound report isn’t due out until Nov. 1, an overview of the report was presented at a Puget Sound Partnership Leadership Council meeting this week.

If you’re confused about where we are in the pandemic — and where we’re headed — you’re not alone. This is a deeply weird time, neither the roaring ’20s we were promised would start after the vaccine became available, nor the misery of last year, when many of us remained all but airlocked in our homes.

The number of ferruginous hawks in Washington continues to decline. The birds face multiple threats, including wildfires, urban sprawl and loss of prey. Washington’s ferruginous hawk population is continuing to slip. The state Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously voted at a meeting in August to change the hawk’s status from threatened to endangered, in an effort to stop the decline.

Thousands of wildfires ignite in the U.S. each year, and each one requires firefighters to make quick decisions, often in difficult conditions like high winds and lightning. Crews and managers must determine when to bring in aircraft, what time of day is best to battle flames, whether to evacuate residents and even if certain fires should be extinguished at all.

Click to drop a raindrop anywhere in the contiguous United States and watch where it ends up

CLALLUM COUNTY, Wash. – Two Olympic Peninsula counties will now require proof of vaccination to enter bars and restaurants. The Health Officer for Jefferson and Clallum Counties issued the vaccination order, saying bars and restaurants bring together large numbers of unmasked people and this will keep them safer.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The Washington State Department of Natural Resources said fires that started over Labor Day weekend accounted for more than 70% of all acres burned in the state in 2020. The fires ravaged the town of Malden and burned 283 homes and more than 600,000 acres across Washington. Smoke from the wildfires temporarily gave Western Washington the worst air quality in the world. To avoid a repeat of last year, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz is asking for the public’s help to prevent wildfires over the holiday weekend.

The Northwest's Bull Kelp fields support a wide array of sea life, but they're disappearing.

As wildfires have burned throughout the Northwest this summer, some forest stands have fared better than others. Managers say that’s thanks, in part, to thinning and prescribed burns, which have made the stands more resilient in the face of wildfire. “What we’re trying to do is get our stands into the structure of what they used to be,” said Pat Ryan, Northeast region state lands assistant manager with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, referring to an era when forests were less dense.

Many Washington state educators feel the hot-button term is being unduly conflated with teaching anything about race and racism.

"Equity" literally means "the quality of being fair." While "equality" relies on the virtue of sameness, "equity" recognizes that different people may need different tools and accommodations to accomplish the same goal. Sameness may still be the ultimate goal (sameness in opportunity, in dignity, in access to physical or monetary resources), but to get there, different processes may be required, just as Pachovas needed different accommodations to have equal access to his college's sidewalks and buildings. Equity recognizes that treating different people the same can be just as unfair as treating the same people differently.

The Twenty Five Mile Fire is now burning almost 10,000 acres at Lake Chelan north of Wenatchee. It’s also threatening more than 720 homes with evacuation notices, with many of them at the highest level where people are asked to leave immediately. Ryan Rodruck with the state Natural Resources Department says the weather this weekend could present a challenge to firefighters.

Whoosh Innovations said its fish passage system could transport salmon quickly over the Snake River dams – and generate $60 million over 10 years by diverting water from fish ladders to hydropower turbines. One Northwest company thinks it may have a better way to help adult salmon make it up and over the Snake River dams.

An Asian giant hornet nest was found Thursday in Whatcom County, Wash., about one-quarter mile from where a hornet was sighted earlier this month, according to the Washington State Department of Agriculture. Department entomologists will develop a plan to eradicate the nest, which is in a rural area east of Blaine near the Canadian border. The eradication likely will be next week, the department said.

With temperatures soaring in the triple digits, the National Weather Service in Seattle issued a Red Flag Warning for Lewis County and other areas of Western Washington on Sunday.  The …

How to be a caring and thoughtful leader while holding your team to high standards.

CONCONULLY – The Muckamuck Fire flirted with Conconully and cleared out the town on Sunday, Aug. 15, but flames were kept at bay and, as of Monday morning, were headed toward West Fork Salmon Creek. The blaze is one of more than a dozen burning in Okanogan and Ferry counties.

A large, new portion of the Twenty-Five Mile Fire at Lake Chelan is now under the most intense evacuation status. The length of 1st Creek Road, which is west of Lake Chelan State Park, is under a Level 3 (Go Now) condition, as is most fire’s footprint along and east of Lakeshore Road to the north

The Biden administration is recommending booster doses for most Americans who received a coronavirus vaccine in order to combat waning immunity and the prevalence of the delta variant. In a joint statement Wednesday, top administration health officials said people would need boosters beginning eight months after their second dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.

Strong winds on Monday led to fire growth in central and eastern Washington that prompted new mandatory evacuations and burned homes, fire officials said. A fire northwest of Spokane that started Sunday near the town of Ford caused residents to scramble to leave their homes on Monday, The Spokesman-Review reported.

FORD, Wash. — The Corkscrew Fire in Ford, Washington destroyed 20 buildings, including eight homes, as it grew to more than 13,000 acres. The fire is located 16.5 miles west-southwest of Deer Park. It's being called the Corkscrew Fire and is burning in timber, grass and brush. This has caused several evacuations in the area.