20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan: Eastern Washington
We have a forest health crisis in our state. Increased rates of droughts and heat waves coupled with the impacts of past management practices put our forests in a weakened state. Unhealthy forests are more susceptible to catastrophic wildfires, destructive insect and disease outbreaks, and other existential threats.
In central and eastern Washington alone, we have at least 2.7 million acres of unhealthy forest. That's why more than 33 organizations and agencies came together in 2017 to adopt a 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan. This plan, grounded in science, sets a bold goal of restoring 1.25 million acres of forest to healthy conditions by removing unhealthy trees, implementing prescribed fire, and other practices to increase fire resilience and better protect our communities. This ambitious scale of forest restoration is unprecedented in our state and is already showing results.
Measuring Progress Towards Resilient Forests
We have refined how we measure progress towards the 20-Year Plan goals. In addition to tracking treatment accomplishments, we now quantify treatment need and progress for priority planning areas using two management objectives: density reduction and surface fuel consumption.
Across the current 45 priority planning areas with landscape evaluations:
- Density reduction treatments are on pace to achieve overall 20-Year Plan goals, with 29-40% of this treatment need completed.
- Surface fuel consumption treatments need to increase, with 14-20% of this treatment need completed.
- Together, these treatments have achieved 20-29% of the combined treatment need identified to date.
- Treatments are targeting high-priority locations. 83% of forest management activities occurred in areas identified as moderate, high, or very high priority for treatment. Treatments also targeted areas with high wildfire hazard potential.
Understanding Footprint Acres vs. Treatment Acres
We track forest health treatments using two different measures:
Footprint acres count each acre only once through spatial analysis, even when that acre has received multiple treatments. This measure tracks the overall spatial scale of management impact. For example, if an acre receives thinning followed by prescribed burning, it counts as one footprint acre. As of October 31, 2025, DNR and our partners have accounted for 589,520 footprint acres treated across central and eastern Washington.
Total treatment acres track every treatment conducted, including those in sequence on the same acre. This reflects the scale and type of investments and actions taken. Using the same example, thinning and prescribed burning on the same acre would count as two total treatment acres. As of October 31, 2025, DNR and our partners have tracked 1.14 million total treatment acres across central and eastern Washington.
Most acres require at least two treatments to reach a resilient condition. Dense forests typically need both density reduction (such as thinning or fuel rearrangement) and surface fuel consumption (such as pile burning or broadcast burning).
We also track treatments by type:
- Density reduction treatments include commercial and non-commercial thinning, fuels rearrangement (mastication, chipping, piling, pruning), regeneration harvests, and moderate-severity wildfire.
- Surface fuel consumption treatments include broadcast burning, pile burning, and low- to moderate-severity wildfire.
This tracking approach helps us understand where treatments occur, what work gets accomplished, and how close we are to meeting landscape-level restoration goals.
By actively managing our forests in partnership with federal, Tribal, and local governments, non-governmental organizations, industry partners, and private landowners, we can restore forests to a more natural and resilient condition. We can bring our forests back to health, boost jobs in rural Washington, and reduce the threat of wildfires
Forest Health Treatment Tracker
We launched the Forest Health Treatment Tracker in 2021 to map the planned, completed and in-progress forest health treatments across Washington. The tool is interactive and illustrates the scale at which treatments are taking place across landscapes, land ownerships and ecosystems. The treatment tracker is updated as new information is reported by landowners and land managers.
The Department of Natural Resources evaluates and prioritizes restoration of central and eastern Washington forests by developing strategies to make them more resilience to wildfires, droughts, insect and disease outbreaks, and severe weather. The interactive map below shows the DNR high-priority areas. Additional map layers and datasets are available by clicking on the button below.
Priority Planning Areas
The 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan is grounded in the scientific evaluation of Washington's forests and information about other assets threatened by wildfire, such as homes, infrastructure, and wildlife habitat.
Landscape evaluations have been conducted for priority planning areas across central and eastern Washington. Geospatial dashboards assessing potential treatments have been completed for a subset of active planning areas. The data and information used to inform this plan are available to the public at https://bit.ly/ForestHealthData to view and download:
- Key information for each planning area, including landscape evaluation summaries, presentation slides, and datasets.
- Maps and spatial data covering eastern Washington.
- Data documentation and methods.
- Reports and documents related to each planning area and the 20-year plan.
Click here for a user guide summarizing the available information, data, and reports.
All Lands, All Hands
It took a century to get where we are today with our forest health crisis, and it will take decades of dedicated support and partnership to reverse the situation. From the federal government (the largest landowner in Washington State) to families who own just a few acres of wooded property, meeting the goals of the 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan will take an "all lands, all hands" approach with everyone doing their part.
To help increase the pace and scale of forest health treatments, DNR has signed Shared Stewardship and Good Neighbor Authority agreements with the federal government, allowing the state to assist with treatments on federal land.
To help small, private landowners in Central and Eastern Washington, DNR offers a cost-share program that property owners may be eligible to receive. Interested landowners can request a free consultation from a forester to learn more about their forest and their wildfire risk. We also work with local partners to prioritize forest health treatments which benefit both long-term forest health and wildland fire operations.
Through the sharing of experience and expertise, we can achieve a future where our forests are safer and more productive.
Building Partnerships Competitive Grant Program
The Washington Department of Natural Resources solicits applications from forest collaboratives through our Building Partnerships Competitive Grant program (formerly known as the Forest Collaborative Infrastructure Pilot). The purpose of this grant program is to provide funding for forest collaboratives to continue to develop an organizational infrastructure that allows them to effectively address forest health issues, deliver on our shared forest health strategic plan goals, and contribute to the improvement of forest health across the state.
While this grant is funding planning and organizational development, proposed activities must directly support increasing the pace and scale of forest health projects in priority landscapes as defined in the 2020 Forest Action Plan and priority planning areas defined in the 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan: Eastern Washington. Funding for this program is provided by House Bill 1168.
For more information about the grant programs, contact Amy Ramsey at amy.ramsey@dnr.wa.gov or 360-902-1309, and see this fact sheet.
Wood Energy and Biomass Utilization
One of DNR's goals under the 20-Year Forest Health Strategic Plan is to incentivize forest health treatments, such as removing the smaller trees overcrowding a forest, by increasing the demand for that small-diameter timber, as well as forest biomass.
Forest Biomass refers to by-products of forest management activities or forest health treatments prescribed under the state's forest health law. Using forest biomass has a number of benefits. Removing timber by-products from the forest helps reduce the risk of forest fires, carbon emissions that result from forest fires, and the loss of forest resources to pests and diseases. And using forest biomass to create pellets for wood stoves can reduce energy costs for consumers.
Washington's forests have an abundant renewable supply of woody biomass, and many forests in Central and Eastern Washington need thinning to restore healthy stand conditions. However, many of the trees have no value in existing commercial markets because they are too small or the trees are too far from any mills. Using some of this material for liquid transportation fuel, heating, electrical power and innovative forest products such as cross-laminated timber will play an important role in the state's emerging green economy, forest health restoration and the fight against climate change.
If you have questions about DNR's wood energy and biomass utilization projects, please contact Chuck Hersey at 360-902-1045 or email chuck.hersey@dnr.wa.gov.
