Forests around Stehekin have always burned. What lessons do they hold for a smoldering West?

They’re going to try to hold the wildfire off at Little Boulder Creek, using the cut as a natural firebreak.

At the same time, they’ll hit it from above, pushing for all available planes and helicopters to dump water and retardant chemicals in the path of the Pioneer fire, the largest wildfire burning in Washington.

What the firefighters don’t want is for the flames to reach the Stehekin Valley, where the stands of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir are thicker and easier to burn. There, risk for a broader and faster spread intensifies.

Already, flames surround the small resort town of Stehekin, and some residents are asking how — after it sparked more than two months ago — the slow-moving fire was ever allowed to reach this point. The answer, experts say, can be found in the national fire response and the geography and history of the region.

The American West must better adapt to these massive wildfires. And repeatedly burned areas, like where the Pioneer fire smolders today, may hold some of the lessons needed to make a future filled with wildfire a more livable reality.

Fighting fire in the steep and rocky outcrops of the Cascade Mountains poses a unique challenge, said Melanie Banton, a public information officer for California Incident Management Team 15, which is working this 37,000-acre blaze. Many places aren’t accessible, not without climbing ropes, anyway.

Flames move slowly through the steep terrain, Banton said. Trees aren’t as thick, so the fire burns lower, tearing through grass and shrubs and flaring when it reaches something more substantial. Burning logs eventually roll down the slopes, spreading fire along the way.

This is the process through which the fire has zigzagged its way up Lake Chelan’s north shore and toward Stehekin for weeks.

Crews on the ground are trying to block its spread by digging trenches, said Sean Quezada, a spokesperson for the Sequoia National Forest team also on the scene. They’ll cut brush and timber and dig into the soil to create a firebreak. It’s physically demanding and dangerous work, made more challenging by the terrain, so they try to use natural features, like creeks, to their advantage, requesting all the air support they can get, he said.

Helicopters and planes aren’t always available, though. Not only are the north banks of Lake Chelan a difficult place to fly, but the Pioneer fire also isn’t the only one in the West, Quezada said. By the time it sparked June 8, wildfire season was already well underway, scattering ground crews, pilots and support staff across the region.

By mid-July, firefighters were effectively spread as thin as they could be, he said.

“We have more fires than resources,” Quezada said.

As the atmosphere warms due to climate change caused by human activities, wildfires are expected to ignite more often and burn hotter, further taxing the West’s already exhausted firefighters.

As of Friday, 91 large wildfires were active, having scorched nearly 2.4 million acres nationwide, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

While the Pioneer fire isn’t the largest — California’s Park fire is — it is among the longest burning.

Geography is only one of the reasons why the Pioneer fire has lasted so long, said Susan Prichard, a scientist specializing in wildfire ecology at the University of Washington. Another reason is that past fires along Lake Chelan’s north shores have already burned much of the fuel that might have otherwise transformed this fire into an all-consuming blaze, tearing through the forest canopy.

Thousands of years ago, the slopes surrounding Lake Chelan looked quite different, Prichard said. Rather than a thick blanket of greenery, the area would have formed a pine savanna with plenty of bunch grass in the understory and a less dense stock of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir.

“Truly old, big trees,” Prichard said. “Built to last.”

Fire was a regular part of the ecosystem back then, whether from lightning or from being intentionally set by Indigenous people, Prichard said. Because the region burned more often, the fires that did sweep through were generally less intense because there was less fuel to burn.

Now, after a centurylong regime of heavy wildfire suppression from state and federal officials, forests across the West are stacked with more flammable materials than they’ve historically supported. As climate change worsens and the region plunges deeper into drought, that foliage will dry out and intensify wildfire risk year after year.

But the Pioneer fire can be considered a partial example of what fires used to look like, Prichard said. It’s burning lower and slower because it’s moving over the patchwork quilt of scars left behind by the Rainbow Bridge (2010), Flick Creek (2006) and Rex Creek (2001) fires, among others.

Yes, the American West faces increased wildfire risk, but once those fires burn through, what’s left behind can start to revert to the way it used to be, Prichard said. This is not to say we should, as a matter of policy, allow wildfires to continue unabated. Decades of fuel accumulation means they’ll burn with an intensity that won’t spare old and mature trees that used to survive the events.

By reducing fuel in these forests, we can help the process along, Prichard said. Local, state and federal officials can clear out the built-up fuel by cutting and clearing younger growth (taking care to leave old and mature trees) or rely on prescribed burns and revitalizing cultural burning practices.

She leaned on a saying in the industry: Fire is a good servant but a bad master.

Right now, Prichard said, “we’re being mastered by fire.”

For their part, officials in Washington are aware of the changing dynamic. They’re leaning more on prescribed burns (weather permitting) and forest cuts. The very manner in which we defend homes and communities is changing. And the practices are sure to evolve in the years ahead.

If we’re able to reduce the fuel in our forests intentionally and appropriately, these types of wildfires will leave less devastation in their wake, Prichard said, and perhaps the landscape can begin to heal once more.