OLYMPIA, Wash. — A new push in Olympia could make a temporary program permanent, allowing rural fire districts to call in aircraft early during wildfires.
Building on the success of a 2023 pilot program that improved wildland fire response efficiency, House Bill 2014 sponsor Rep. Tom Dent (R-Moses Lake) emphasized the program’s effectiveness, saying it saves money and stops fires from becoming major incidents.
“These small rural fire departments can call, and they can request air asset support to come in on a — when a fire begins, and quite often we can knock these fires down really fast,” Dent said in a release. “We’ve done a lot of fires, we’ve knocked down quickly, and we’ve kept our rural fire departments economically whole. Everybody loves it because it works.”
The goal of the 2026 legislative session, starting January 12, is to remove the program’s expiration date and make it permanent. The policy has strong backing from fire chiefs and rural districts throughout Washington, according to Washington State House Republicans in the release.
