As Western Washington braces for a tough year of wildfires, King Conservation District is pleased to announce the expansion of our capacity around Wildfire Resilience and Preparedness planning.
Matt Axe joins King Conservation District as the new full time Wildfire and Forest Resiliency Coordinator. Matt served 10 years in the U.S. Army before returning to school at Green River College where he began pursuing a career in forest management. At Green River College Matt acquired on the ground skills and experience in forestry while completing applied associate degrees in Wildfire, Forestry, and Parks and Recreation Management and a bachelor’s degree in forest management. Having lived with his family and worked in in the forests of rural King County and near Spokane most recently, Matt is very aware of the challenges that rural communities and Washington’s forests face due to climate change and increasing wildfire risks.
Matt is passionate about protecting our forests, helping the diverse communities that live in Wildland Urban Interface zones, and empowering private landowners to take actions that make their communities and homes more wildfire resilient. In collaboration with our partners at King County, WA DNR, and local fire districts, Matt will be providing wildfire preparedness education, safety assessment, and planning services to individual landowners and communities. He will also be working with communities to implement wildfire risk reduction projects.
Matt will hit the ground running for KCD completing a wildfire safety evaluation for the Emerald Heights Community located in the City of Redmond, as well as presenting on wildfire preparedness with King County and the local fire district to the Lake Desire Community.
These projects highlight the important work conservation districts are doing to prepare our communities for wildfire. As Washington Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz stated recently at a Civic Cocktail event broadcast on the Seattle Channel, “Conservation districts are hugely valuable…in being able to go on small forest landowners, who are 40% of our forest lands in Washington state, and bring resources to them to know what to do to make their forest lands more resilient in the face of fire.”