Many islanders — reeling from the images of fire-scorched neighborhoods in Southern California — are worried: Could a catastrophic wildfire happen on wooded Vashon Island, where extra firefighting support is a ferry ride away?

On Facebook and elsewhere, some have called Vashon a tinderbox waiting to ignite and urged public agencies and the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust to engage in fuel reduction efforts in our forest preserves to lessen the risks.

But experts from fire ecologists, to climatologists, to volunteers with VashonBePrepared say the situation on Vashon is far different from the one in California.

They urge preparation, similar to the way many islanders have learned to prepare for a massive earthquake. That’s because a catastrophic fire — what scientists call a “stand-replacing fire” — could happen in a temperate forest like ours; historically, such fires occur every 150 to 400 years, said Derek Churchill, an islander who works as a forest health scientist for the state Department of Natural Resources and who has studied fire ecology.

But such an event is not only very rare, it also calls for a different kind of preparation and response in the Puget lowlands, he said.

Southern California has factors that make it far more conducive to frequent wildfires, including highly flammable chaparral (shrubland), steep ravines and high winds. Vashon’s damp forests, on the other hand, are not nearly as flammable, and strong summertime winds are rare, Churchill said.

What’s more, our forests are highly productive: When cleared, vegetation quickly fills in the gaps. “In more moderate conditions, without winds, a closed canopy forest will have more moisture,” he said, while grass “can burn faster than a forest — it’s flashy, like kindling.”

In fact, studies have shown that hardwoods, such as alder, common in our forests, “actually burn slower than other vegetation types and act as a wet blanket,” Churchill said.

“It’s probably worth it to have a coordinated effort to assess our risk and educate people,” he added. “But managing our forests to be resistant to these extreme fires is a false hope.”

Major wildfires happen when three factors come into play, as they did in Los Angeles earlier this month: Dry conditions, strong, dry winds from the east and an ignition during that window.

“Wind is the major piece,” Churchill said. “If you have a wildland fire without the wind, it may move through the forest, but it won’t be a catastrophic event.”

Vashon rarely has strong winds from the east — they’re generally moist winds from the south or cold winds from the north, said Reid Wolcott, warming coordination meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A “bomb cyclone” — driven by high winds off the Cascades — is similar to the fierce Santa Ana winds Southern California is experiencing, Wolcott added. “But the difference for us is that we typically get those in the winter, when we’re also fairly wet. It’s very dissimilar from California.”

Climate change is a factor that has to be considered, both Churchill and Wolcott said. Summertime droughts are lasting longer in our region, creating a longer fire season; nights are not as cool or moist. “But there’s no evidence that climate change will increase east winds,” Churchill said.

“We’re in a low-frequency fire zone,” said Tom Dean, conservation director at the Vashon-Maury Island Land Trust. People who call for controlled burns to reduce the fuel load in the forest understory, he added, “are conflating east side forests with west side forests. … We’re a completely different fire regime.”

Even so, many experts say we should be prepared for wildland fire.

A stand-replacing fire is a “low-probability, high-consequence event,” as one scientific article put it, “akin to other natural hazards that westside communities face, such as earthquakes and tsunamis.” When such fires occur, quick evacuation is the main focus. In September 2020, major stand-replacing fires occurred in Western Oregon during a period of east winds; 720,000 acres burned in 48 hours.

Far more common on Vashon are fires that start during calm weather and are easy to contain, Churchill said. But if not put out quickly and if winds pick up even modestly, such a fire could destroy homes and put people and animals in harm’s way.

“What we really need to be prepared for is the forest fire that gets started and spreads,” said Rick Wallace, a long-time volunteer for VashonBePrepared. “The danger zone for us is that first hour or so when a fire can get away.”

To that end, agencies on Vashon and throughout the region are taking steps to prevent an ignition, especially before or during east wind events, as well as ensuring they have the resources to quickly contain a fire if one should start.

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue has been working to enhance its crews’ readiness for wildfire, said Ben Davidson, the department’s deputy chief. The majority of its firefighters are now “red-card certified,” he said, meaning they’ve undergone 32 hours of additional training geared towards wildland firefighting.

The department has also improved its equipment. It now has “progressive hose lay packs,” Davidson said — hoses on backpacks that allow firefighters to enter the woods with the hose deploying behind them. “That enables them to get a water source deep into a forest,” Davidson explained.

The district has taken these measures “not because we think we’re a tinderbox,” he said, but to prepare the island for what he called a much more likely scenario — “smaller-scale wildland fires during very dry periods of summer.”

Puget Sound Energy has also taken steps: It recently announced that it will preemptively shut off power if conditions suggest fire risk is high, a tool it calls “Public Safety Power Shutoff.”

Studies show that some of the most destructive fires, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 84 people in Paradise, California, and the 2023 fire that killed 115 people on Maui, were likely triggered by power lines that snapped or transmission equipment that failed.

PSE has yet to use the tool, said Ryan Murphy, director of electric operations at PSE, and will do so only as a last resort.

The public utility recently hired Technosylva, a national company that specializes in wildfire science and risk reduction, to evaluate and rate risk throughout PSE’s 25,000-mile distribution system.

PSE also has a meteorologist on staff, a wildfire expert and a team trained to monitor fire risk round the clock, all of whom will use weather forecasts combined with the fire risk tool created by Technosylva to let communities and emergency responders know when a power shut-off might be needed to preempt a natural disaster.

“We’ve determined probability for every mile of infrastructure … so that we can ultimately make that very tough decision,” Murphy said.

Just last week, Water District 19 commissioners also decided to take action. At their last meeting, the commissioners noted the alarming situation they read about in the Palisades, where firefighters hooked up their hoses to hydrants that sputtered and then failed, Seth Zuckerman, the commission’s president, said.

The commission wants to ensure that District 19, the largest purveyor of water on Vashon, has access to enough water should the island face a large fire. So they decided to contact the King Conservation District (KCD), which offers a fire resilience assessment to agencies; last week, after their board meeting, Zuckerman requested such an assessment.

He expects KCD staff will look at both the vegetation surrounding District 19’s facilities and the proximity of powerlines and help the district figure out the best proactive steps, including the kind of generator it would need to ensure continued operation.

“We wouldn’t want our systems to be so vulnerable to wildfire that they stopped delivering water in a crisis,” he said.

Wallace, with VashonBePrepared, said he’s encouraged by the island’s response to a potential fire. PSE’s cautionary blackouts “are a fundamental part of preventing fire.” VIFR, meanwhile, “has made some important investments in their readiness for wildfire.”

Individual action matters, too, he noted. Islanders can take several steps to protect their homes, from moving flammable objects at least 30 feet away from their houses to keeping their roofs, gutters, and decks free of leaves, he said.

Equally important, islanders should never use fireworks or burn outdoors during Vashon’s hot, dry months, he said.

“I would never say that we’ll never have a bad fire on Vashon,” he said. “But what can we actually prevent or prepare for? The best answer is to not have that fire start in the first place.”

Leslie Brown is a former editor of The Beachcomber.