The Columbia River Basin is a fire adapted landscape. For thousands of years, both human and lightning caused wildfires have helped shape the local ecosystem by allowing plants and animals that can live with fire to thrive, and limiting the spread of species that can’t. In forests and grasslands like ours, low intensity fires would regularly sweep through an area burning pine needles, dry leaves, dead wood, and low lying dry brush and grasses, while leaving many of the fire adapted trees and shrubs blackened but unharmed. In some cases single dead trees or clumps of closely spaced trees would burn, but usually the frequency of these fires would keep the fuel buildup low enough to prevent the fires from getting too intense. Early in the 20th century a rapidly growing population and a series of large fires led to an official government policy to put out all fires as soon as possible.
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It's not if, its when. Each summer we face the threat of fast moving fires in our foothills, right down to our own back yards. Wenatchee has every element for the making of a disaster scale wildfire like those of California's recent history, it just hasn't happened yet. Governments from federal to city, non-profits, insurance companies and your local fire district work together to "solve the problem" but it can not be done without your participation. Working together with a sense of shared responsibility is key in improving future wildfire outcomes. A Fire Adapted Community prepares for, responds to, and recovers from wildfire. There is no end state in this concept, rather a culture of living with fire on our landscape.  A goal of the Chelan County Fires District #1 is to work side by side with homeowners, communities, businesses, agencies and organizations to increase our community wildfire resilience, and improve future wildfire outcomes.