Story by Rodger Nichols for Gorge Country Media
Even as U.S. Forest Service firefighters conducted a 76-acre prescribed burn in the Catherine Creek and Tracy Hill area of Klickitat County, a tag team of agencies were discussing fire prevention at the Goldendale City Council last night.
The agenda item featured Carmen Knopes of the Sheriff’s Department, Hillary Lundgren of the nonprofit Resource Legacy Foundation, and Charlie Landsman of the Department of Natural Resources. It was billed as presenting an evacuation plan for Goldendale in the event of a wildfire reaching the city.
But the those plans weren’t quite ready for prime time as Carmen Knopes explained:
“We don’t have an evacuation plan in here. That is in the final stages. We’ve had multiple tabletop exercises through the US Fire Administration FEMA. We included our federal, state and local partners, all the fire chiefs. So that plan’s in its final draft this week.”
The packet of information presented to the council did not contain the evacuation plans but did contain some modeling of fire activity, which was not made available to those attending the meeting in person or those online.
“Most of this information in here is not out to the public yet. It’s not ready for publication. We don’t want to scare people, but you guys should be aware of the work going on.”
Knopes did say that as soon as the information was finalized, it will be released to the public. And she passed on a very helpful website:
“It’s called wildfirereadyklicktat.org, and it was also funded through the Resource Legacy Fund. And that website gives a before, during, and after what to do with better wildfire, including contractors and stuff that have been vetted. So it’s a really great resource for Klickitat County”
That website again is wildfire ready klickitat dot org.
In other business the council gave its formal concurrence to the next 6-year waste management program for the county.