Fewer wildfires in the Northwest has reduced spending by millions
The total cost of fighting wildfires in the Pacific Northwest plummeted this year.
That is because the 2019 wildfire season has not been as bad as last year — at least in the Northwest, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC).
The total cost of fire suppression this year in the Northwest has been about $88 million, which is $620 million less than the $709.9 million spent on firefighting last year – a reduction of more than 87%.
About 178,129 acres have burned in 2019, the NWCC reported. That's down from 1.27 million acres burned last year.
And the total number of large fires has declined more than 72%. Lightning-caused fires are down almost 75%, and there have been only four human-caused fires in 2019 — a reduction of about 92%.
Cooler temperatures and more rain have contributed to the slow wildfire season, which lasts through the end of September.
"We weren’t getting the heat or the drying that was expected . . . We had a little bit more moisture levels and fuel recovery levels . . . When it [lightning] did hit and where it did hit, it wasn’t strong enough to produce a spark for a fire," Carol Connolly, the NWCC spokeswoman, told FOX Business.
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Connolly praised the region's firefighters for helping contain small fires before they grew.
"When the fires got started, we had the resources to get to them very quickly," Connolly said. "You want to give a lot of the credit to the people on the ground."