When a lightning strike sparked the Katy Creek Fire in northeast Washington, firefighters found themselves facing a landscape that, like much of the West, had gone a century without a major burn. The dense, overgrown forests were the result of decades of fire exclusion and forest “non-management,” policies that stopped the small, low-intensity fires that once cleaned up understory brush and preserved large, fire-resilient trees.
Fortunately, this time, the outcome was different. Thanks to years of proactive collaboration between the Colville National Forest and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, the Deadman Fuels Treatment Project gave firefighters exactly what they needed: a ready-made location to stop the fire’s advance. This collaboration was recently featured in a YouTube video from the Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team.
Click here to watch the “Deadman Fuels Treatment Project”
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After the 2018 Boyd’s Fire raised alarms about fuel buildup and growing wildfire threats, the two agencies took action in the area between Nancy Creek and Deadman Creek. Using the Good Neighbor Authority, a tool that allows state and federal agencies to partner on forest management, they planned and implemented a series of thinning operations and fuel treatments. Crews removed dense underbrush and small trees that could carry flames into the canopy, creating a strategic break that tied the upper and lower drainages together.
It wasn’t a matter of if a fire would come, but when. And when the Katy Creek Fire arrived, the results were unmistakable. As the blaze moved toward the treated area, firefighters identified the Deadman project as the best place to anchor containment efforts. The treatments had reduced fuel loads enough to make the landscape more defensible, allowing for safe and effective back-burning operations. Using drones for aerial ignition, crews were able to remove remaining fuels and halt the fire’s westward push. What could have become another large, uncontrolled wildfire was stopped in its tracks.
Local officials and project partners point out that there were no other nearby places that could have served as such an effective firebreak. The project worked precisely as intended, demonstrating the importance of completing proactive treatments before a crisis begins.
Beyond its success in firefighting, the Deadman project also highlights the economic and social benefits of active management. By partnering under the Good Neighbor Authority, the agencies were able to leverage timber revenues and local contracting capacity, putting money back into rural communities while supporting the region’s robust forest products infrastructure. It’s a model of how good forestry and good economics can work hand in hand.
The lesson from Deadman is clear: to protect our forests and communities, we must act before the flames arrive. Science-based thinning, prescribed fire, and timber harvesting are not just tools for resource management, they are essential defenses against the increasingly destructive wildfires that threaten the West.
