'We're going to be tested': Hilary Franz on wildfire season, ahead of presentation in Chelan County tonight

American Forests Chief Executive Officer and Former Washington State Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz speaks with foresters. Photo courtesy: American Forests.

“Are we ready for wildfire?’ is the topic of a talk in Leavenworth, beginning at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 6.

Hillary Franz, the former Washington State Lands Commissioner is the keynote speaker at the Chumstick Wildfire Stewardship Coalition annual town hall, at the Snowy Owl Theatre, 7409 Icicle Road in Leavenworth.

"We're going to be tested," said Franz in advance of her presentation. "People need to be very, very ready for a very, very tough (wildfire) season."

Franz and firefighters know that immediate attack on fires is critical.

"Look at the air resources we've had over the last four or five years is 44 air resources, we've increased our ground resources and equipment to increased dozers, increased firefighters."

Franz is now the CEO of American Forests, a national nonprofit conservation organization. During her time as head of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR), she was instrumental in working with the legislature on wildfire protections.

"House Bill 1498 was one of my signature bills that I passed with Rep. Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake), which was really about how do we actually get initial attack to these local fire districts, and sort of address the gap in time between the call from the fire chief to when it (the first report of a fire) actually gets to DNR for us to release air resources," said Franz. "The moment we see fire on the landscape, we're on it."

"You look at the forested landscape, especially in Chelan, Kittitas, up in Okanogan County, lot of dead wood, lot of dry fuel that can combust especially when it doesn't have the moisture that we like to see in our wintertime and we also have a lot of communities, and more communities everyday, growing into that wildland-urban interface that are not as aware of how significant the fire risk," Franz added in promoting proactive wildfire protection efforts.

In 2025, 95% of all wild land fires were kept to 10 acres or less in size, and Franz says, "It's created a false sense of security to the people in the communities that are living within this high fire risk landscape that we won't have a problem of 2014 and 2015 and we won't have the problem of the Labor Day fires of 2020, and that's the farthest thing from the truth."

"Our landscape is still struggling," proclaimed Franz. "We have to do millions acres of forest restoration, we've got to do post-fire reforestation, and we have got to desperately help communities harden their homes and create that defensible space."

May is National Wildfire Awareness Month, dedicated to educating more people about the dangers of wildfire – and the simple steps we all can take to make homes more resilient to it.

Residents interested in learning more about home preparedness and wildfire prevention can visit the DNR website.