Tribes, counties and conservation groups urge Congress and state to shore up wildfire response and restore '11‑68' funding

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee received extensive testimony in support of House Joint Memorial 4009, which urges Congress to ensure federal wildland fire resources remain able to protect communities, watersheds and firefighter health.

Representative Springer, the memorial's prime sponsor, told the committee wildfire is a regional challenge and urged federal partnership as much of Washington’s wildland is federally owned. Speakers from tribal governments, county associations, conservation nonprofits and private forest landowners described the federal consolidation of firefighting programs and asked Congress not to reduce on‑the‑ground capacity.

Testimony repeatedly cited the state’s '11‑68' wildfire resilience funding (referred to in testimony as November/11‑68) as an effective investment. Darcy Batura of The Nature Conservancy and others said that prevention and landscape‑health projects funded by 11‑68 reduce suppression costs and protect communities; Batura said every dollar spent on mitigation saved an estimated $8.14 in state costs and estimated saving Washington $1 billion over 20 years if fully funded. Private landowners and the Washington Forest Protection Association described concrete results from treatments and good‑neighbor agreements enabling state work on federal lands.

Tribal testimony stressed the scale of burned and treated acreage within reservations and urged flexible, locally responsive resources. Labor representatives and county officials emphasized capacity and staffing needs for sustained interagency response.

No amendments were recorded for the memorial during the hearing; committee staff read the large list of pro and con sign‑ins into the record and closed the public hearing. Speakers urged the legislature to restore and align state funding with federal partners to maintain improvements in response time and cross‑boundary coordination.