Cowlitz County officials have reintroduced a way to alert residents about natural disasters like wildfires, flash flooding and now excessive heat waves.
LONGVIEW A little over a year ago, the Big Hollow Fire sparked in the Trapper Creek Wilderness area, eventually burning around 25,000 acres in a month and closing that portion of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
Washington’s wildfire season is off to a busy start. During one week in April, the state Department of Natural Resources responded to 91 wildfires, and more than 1,200 acres have burned this year.
Although 40 years have passed since the eruption of Mount St. Helens devastated the Lower Columbia Region in a landmark geological event, Cowlitz County continues to feel the effects, both literal and symbolic, of the blast.
In a year of another lifechanging crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Daily News top five environmental stories fittingly cover fish, fires and two developments in the ongoing response to sediment and flooding woes that are a consequence of the 1980 eruption.
The year opened on a light note for smelt dippers, who received the approval to dip for the thin silvery fish for the first time since 2017. The recreational fishery opened on Valentineâs Day, long before most Cowlitz County residents had heard of the novel coronavirus.