"A tinder box in our woods": Local wildfire season anticipated to be most dangerous, yet

YAKIMA COUNTY, Wash. -- "90 percent of our fires are caused by humans," said Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz.

And she’s not talking about house fires.

Franz is talking about wildfires.

She says Washington is leading the nation in size and number of wildfires so far this year, and its just getting started.

"Our forests are drying out. They're drying out quicker, and so we’re likely to see more fire this year, not only in traditional areas of central and eastern Washington, but everywhere in the state, and we’re likely to have not only a long, hot fire season, but one that will go well into the end of the year," said Franz.

2018 saw about 440,000 acres burned across the state, totaling out to about 1850 wildfires firefighters responded to.

And Franz says the state exceeded it's usual annual $153 million dollars spent to remedy this.

"We obviously have a forest health crisis in Washington state, with 2.7 million acres of forest in central Washington alone that are dying, disease, insect infestation. It's literally leading to basically a tinder box in our woods," said Franz.

She says this year will easily top last. In the second week of March alone, firefighters responded to 54 Washington wildfires, and a total of about 300 since then.

And, with the majority of these fires caused by man, Franz says people need to be more conscious of fire hazards.

"They need to be checking burn bans," said Franz. "They need to make sure their behavior is moving very much against causing any chance of fires."