(TNS) - Wildland firefighters expect the Pacific Northwest will see another busy fire season this year with land around Yakima especially vulnerable.

“If I were to pick one place that might experience above-average fire danger, it’s the Yakima Valley and the eastern slopes” of the Cascade Mountains, said Josh Clark, a meteorologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

Less rain in the winter, above-average temperatures and less mountain snow mean fires could start earlier and burn longer than a typical season, Clark said.

Clark spoke at a conference of wildland firefighters from Alaska, Washington and Oregon held at the Yakima Convention Center.

Washington has seen a dramatic increase in wildfires over the past 10 years because of climate change, said Chuck Turley, a wildfire division manager for the state Department of Natural Resources.

“We don’t think of them as fire seasons anymore, we think of them as fire years, because they start earlier and go later,” Turley said.

Last year, 3,404 wildfires burned more than 1.2 million acres of forest in the Pacific Northwest. In Central Washington, two large blazes — the Jolly Mountain and Norse Peak fires — blackened roughly 92,000 acres of forest in Kittitas County.

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