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Bipartisan leaders honored as wildfire laws credited with shrinking blazes and scaling restoration
Summary
At WPA's Stu Bledsoe Award event, Commissioner Hillary Franz and state representatives were recognized for bipartisan passage of House Bill 11-68 and House Bill 14-98, which officials say expanded aviation response, funded firefighters and helped restore hundreds of thousands of acres to reduce wildfire damage.
At a Stu Bledsoe Award ceremony hosted by WPA, state officials and lawmakers were honored for bipartisan work that supporters say transformed Washington's wildfire response and accelerated forest-restoration efforts.
The award recognized Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz and state Representatives Joel Kretz, Tom Dent and Larry Springer for leadership that helped pass House Bill 11-68 (2021) and House Bill 14-98. Commissioner Franz told the audience the legislation "funds additional firefighters, air resources, local community fire prevention and bolstered landscape resilience." Franz said the state committed $125,000,000 per biennium for four bienniums, a total of $500,000,000.
Those investments, Franz said, enabled a sharp expansion of aviation and suppression assets and a statewide restoration program. "We've restored over 800,000 acres of forest in just seven years," she said, and the state remains on a path to reach a 20-year goal to restore 1,250,000 acres. Franz added that recent results include keeping 95% of fires below 10 acres in the last three years, an outcome she tied to faster initial attack and dedicated aviation assets.
Recipient Tom Dent recounted early work persuading officials to use aircraft for initial-attack response and said quick aerial response "is where it's at," crediting those tactics with preventing homes and forests from burning. Joel Kretz, another recipient, said he and colleagues had long pushed policy changes but that the central obstacle had been funding: "The one thing that was really lacking was funding," he said, adding that bipartisan cooperation allowed larger changes to move forward.
Speakers also described House Bill 14-98 as a procedural improvement that shortened authorization for aviation support: where the old system could take many hours and multiple calls, the new process reduced that to roughly 15 to 30 minutes, panelists said — a change fire chiefs called "transformative" for initial attack.
Panelists credited a mix of actions for the results: increased exclusive-use aviation contracts so assets would be available to the state when needed, larger operations rosters, investments in technology such as cameras and drones, and an expanded forest-restoration workforce. The Nature Conservancy and other partners were cited in remarks as endorsing the bills for giving agencies and communities a better chance to prevent large, destructive wildfires.
Despite the praise, Franz urged caution. She warned that success can breed a "false sense of security" and that budget pressures could reduce the funding that made the changes possible. "The moment House Bill 11-68 passed, every single year we are fighting to keep that funding," she said, calling on audience members and constituents to advocate for maintaining commitments.
The ceremony concluded with brief closing remarks praising cross-party cooperation and a promise from the organizers to present Representative Springer's award later when his schedule allowed. No formal votes or new policy actions were taken at the event.
