SPOKANE, Wash. – More than 100,000 acres have already burned across Washington state this year as of July 23, according to Washington Department of Natural Resources officials.
These numbers include wildfires that have officially been reported to the DNR.
There have been just under 800 wildfires across Washington since January and more than 80 percent of those were human-caused, officials said.
Let’s compare these statistics to years past.
By this time last year, more than 17,000 acres had burned in Washington. That means we have reached more than five times as many acres this year. In 2016, that number was 1,600 acres around this same time.
In 2015, 14,000 acres had burned. Compare these numbers to 2014, when almost 300,000 acres had burned by this time.
Clearly, 2014 was a bad fire season. But numbers have seriously climbed since 2015.
Officials with the Idaho Bureau of Land Management said they typically do not track fires and acres by state. Instead, they track these numbers by geographic area.
Those numbers were not readily available but KREM 2 will provide updates if and when they are.
Officials with Washington State Patrol also want to remind people they could be fined over $1,000 if they are caught throwing lighted material from vehicles.