KING COUNTY, Wash. - In one of Washington State’s worst fire seasons, burning hundreds of homes and causing damage estimated in the hundreds of millions, Eastside Fire and Rescue Wildfire Mitigation Specialist Catherine Robinson says she is hearing from more people hoping to protect their homes against fires.
“Annually, we’re seeing examples of this is not an uncommon occurrence anymore,” Robinson said. “It only takes one of those events for your home to become one of the ones that burns down.”
Robinson goes across the Wildland-Urban Interface (called the WUI for short), analyzing people’s risk of their home burning down in a fire. Oftentimes, the threat is not the wall of flames of a traveling fire, but of embers carried by wind that land on fuels on or near the home.
“People will pretty quickly turn their back on their home and look out at the forest and say, ‘I am worried about all those trees.’ There’s certainly something to be thinking about there but I turn them back toward their home and say the thing you should be worried about the most is your home. In this forest, your home is the direst thing here.” Robinson said.
KIRO7 met Robinson at the home of Anne Newcomb and John Sherwin. We first met the three there in 2025, just after Robinson had assessed their wood-cabin home in the forests behind Tiger Mountain, nestled in the King County foothills.
We came out again at the end of summer to check in on their progress.
Ferns and grasses that brushed up against their home have been replaced with lava rock, and their wood deck has been replaced with more fire-resistant materials. A metal flashing bordered the bottom of their home, colored to blend in with the wood siding, and screens an eighth of an inch covered every vent, opening, and nook where embers could find their way in.
“All the work that we did for the Firewise, the embers, also prevent small rodents, mice, from entering the house,” Sherwin said of the noticed side benefit.
“I was so impressed with the work that they had done and with some of the creativity that they did it with,” Robinson said.
The work was partially reimbursed from the King Conservation District, which typically pays up to 75% of mitigation costs for homes in the WUI but can be more for cases of financial hardship.
“Being able to get help with the cost of implementing some of those practices helps encourage folks to actually take those first steps towards creating a home that’s mitigated against wildfire risks.” Natalia Williams, the wildfire mitigation program coordinator for KCD, said.
For Newcomb and Sherwin, the cash and the timeline helped ensure the work they knew they needed to do got done.
“Protecting our home just feels like a really good use of our time and energy and money, and we’re excited to keep doing the work because we see the return on the investment of just knowing that we’re protected,” Sherwin said.