SB5611 – Improving community preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience to wildfire impacts in areas of increasing density. (Dead.)
Prime Sponsor – Senator Wagoner (R; 39th District; Skagit & Snohomish County) (Co-Sponsors Shewmake, Hunt, Lovelett, Valdez, & Van De Wege – Ds) (By request of the Department of Natural Resources.)
Current status – Referred to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks. Still in committee by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
HB1578 is a companion bill in the House.
Summary –
The bill would require the Department of Natural Resources to assess areas at significant risk for wildfire over the next ten years, to do a mid-term interim report and to repeat the process for at least two succeeding ten year periods. The assessment would include an analysis of predicted climate influence on wildfire risk and provide enough detail for stakeholders to develop strategies to address it. The Department would cooperate with local law enforcement, tribes, county emergency managers, and local fire protection districts to develop evacuation strategies for areas facing significant wildfire risks and provide support to incorporate those in existing emergency response plans. It would lead a project to provide public disaster and evacuation plan messaging and information at the recreation and outdoor access sites it manages, including signage at trailheads.
In addition, the Department would be required to expand its programming for community and property wildfire readiness, and the associated programs such as resilience grants and service forestry within areas of western Washington where it determined there were wildfire and smoke exposure risks. It would participate in cross-agency emergency management planning and response efforts related to wildfire smoke. It would share wildfire information online, and incorporate smoke readiness into community resilience programming, coordinating with other government agencies to share information and guidance (including providing online fire information) for communities affected by wildfire smoke. It would establish a smoke monitoring and predictive services team using a variety of tools to assess wildland smoke risks and impacts; work cross-agency to address public health concerns, smoke risk to transportation safety, and firefighter exposure to smoke; and conduct community engagement and outreach related to smoke risks and impacts, with particular emphasis on environmental justice issues.
It would also coordinate with state agencies, local fire protection districts, local governments, and Indian tribes to identify smoke respite areas in high-risk communities and promote the utilization of community buildings as clean air and cooling centers, with specific information strategies targeted to people who might not receive electronic communication. It would leverage community resilience programming to ensure residents and organizations are provided information about services and programs to improve home indoor air quality, such as low-income weatherization services.
It would implement a postwildfire debris flow program, identifying areas prone to hazards from flows, assessing burned areas to determine potential for increases in flow hazards, improving modeling to determine triggers to use in postwildfire debris flow early warning, and communicating information about preparedness and response to officials, stakeholders, and the public. It would have to establish the structure for a state sponsored burned area emergency stabilization and response program in consultation with stakeholders by December 30th, 2024, making recommendations about the funding to provide capacity-building for communities to establish local teams, the number of teams needed, and the funding to support their deployments and implement hazard mitigation. The teams would be responsible for determining needs for emergency postfire treatments to help provide public safety and resource protection.