Colvilles meet governor at 'epicenter of climate change'

 

Last updated 7/29/2021 at 1:23pm

Jacob Wagner

Gov. Jay Inslee listens to tribal elder Darlene Wilder in a meeting July 21 with Colville Tribes leaders and people affected by recent fires.

Gov. Jay Inslee met with tribal leaders and people affected by wildfire in Nespelem last week, characterizing the area as perhaps "the epicenter of climate change."

He met with the Colville Business Council as well as with incident command staff from recent reservation fires in a closed meeting inside the Lucy Covington Government Center, the Tribal Tribune reported.

"These are such difficult days dealing with COVID and these fires," Inslee is reported as saying in the July 21 meeting. "No people in our state have been more stressed than your people for the last year and a half."

Incident command staff updated Inslee and the CBC on the fires burning. 

The lightning-caused Chuweah Creek Fire that started July 12 had burned 36,820 acres and was 65% contained as of July 27. The Summit Trail Fire near Inchelium had burned 13,767 acres and was only 3% contained.


Since 2015, more than half a million acres have burned on the Colville's 1.4 million acre reservation.

This month, the Chuweah Creek fire burned three homes on the reservation, among other structures, and led to the entire town of Nespelem being evacuated when it started.

"This is one of the driest years we have seen since 1895," NWTeam 12 Incident Commander Robert Shindelar told Inslee about Eastern Washington climatology, the Tribune reported.

"When we talk about the availability of vegetation to burn out there, we are experiencing

fire behavior that we would normally experience at the end of August this early in July, Shindelar continued. "Our fire seasons are not only getting longer, but the period of time where we are having to deal with extreme fire behavior and large fire growth is also increasing. I have a great concern about fatigue, going into the season. A normal fire season won't normally start until the last week in July or the first week in August. We have already exhausted the system."


Following the closed meeting, Inslee spoke to the public outside of the government center, including with people affected by the Chuweah Creek Fire.

Darlene Wilder shared her story of the fire coming close to her house on Owhi Flats, and burning down her niece's house.

The fire came within about 50 yards of her house, and she thanked Derek Vasquez for climbing on the roof and turning a sprinkler on to wet the house until the power went out.

"The power kept going out and trees were falling every which way," Wilder said. 

She also thanked Jesse Palmer for using his water tanker to douse her home, and for the fire-fighting teams who worked to save homes. 

"If there is one lesson that we should have learned out of all of this ...," Wilder said. "I think we all better straighten out how we're living, learn to pray and follow what the Creator has put us here to do, and that's take care of our Mother Earth for future generations." 

Inslee then designated Wilder as Washingtonian of the Day, for her eloquence in what she said, and for her love of the state of Washington.

"I really appreciate you sharing your heart with us," Inslee said, "and I'm going to take your message to legislators and everyone else in the hopes that we can fight this [climate change] beast that's destroying this home we love."

Inslee spoke about the need to fix the Keller Ferry, which was out of operation for an evacuation route during the fire, and the loss of timber on the reservation.

Tribal Chairman Andy Joseph Jr.  gave Inslee a blanket as a gift. "You coming here and speaking with our people means a lot to us," Joseph told Inslee.

"Gosh this is beautiful," Inslee said. "I can't wait till it gets cold now."

Joseph laughed and said, "We'll have to pray for some cooler weather."

"What we've seen today is great heartache, great loss, great courage all at the same time on the Colville Reservation," Inslee said to news media present. "People have lost homes, timber. People need hope, and we need to do anything we can."

He said he helped get aerial assets to the fire that helped save houses after he asking Joseph early on how to help. 

Inslee referred to the local area as possibly being the "epicenter" of climate change in Washington.

"There is a reality here we have to face," he said, "and that is that the people of this community are being hit by drought, the agricultural industry is being hit by giant fires, they are losing timber due to beetle kill, they have water so hot the salmon can't survive in it. These folks are getting hit by climate change left right and center. ... We've got to fight climate change at its source because it is punishing the people of this community, and I just get so angry when I think about the injury they are having because we have not fought climate change the way that we should. We've taken some strong measures recently in our state, and we need to keep that effort up until we defeat climate change."

Asked about the Department of Natural Resources closing public lands in the state, Inslee said that it was a reasonable decision because of how dry it is and that the state has "never had more explosive forest."

"Our families love these lands to recreate, to connect to children and grandchildren," he said. "It comes back to how important it is to stop these droughts and stop this hot weather, that means to stop climate change. Whether you can go fishing or not depends on whether we defeat climate change or not, and that's why everyone needs to pull on the rope."

Inslee said that it would be easier to help communities hurt by fires now that President Joe Biden is in office, compared to last year when President Donald Trump was in office and the town of Malden, Washington was hit severely by a wildfire, with 80% of its buildings burned.

"It'll be easier because we have a president who cares about people," Inslee said.  We have a president now who doesn't want to punish Malden, unlike the last president. He basically refused to help Malden because he said he doesn't like the governor of Washington. Which is the most reprehensible abdication of responsibility I ever heard of. Why should the people of Malden suffer because Donald Trump has a psychological problem? But that problem has gone away. We have a president who will listen to us."

 

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