Darcy Batura, director of forest partnerships for The Nature Conservancy, told the Senate Agriculture, Water, Natural Resources & Parks Committee on Jan. 13 that the organization has used state funding from House Bill 1168 to carry out mechanical thinning and prescribed burns on Cle Elum Ridge, adjacent to Roslyn and Cle Elum.

Batura said the Nature Conservancy has completed about 1,700 acres of restoration on the Cle Elum Ridge and that Department of Natural Resources restoration funds supported roughly 1,000 acres of that work. She said the organization treats thin, masticate and then follows with prescribed fire once fuels have cured.

The work, Batura said, is intended to restore historically fire-adapted western dry forests and reduce the risk of catastrophic canopy fires to nearby one-way-in, one-way-out towns. “There’s no future in western dry forests without fire,” she said, adding that the question is whether fire will be a destructive force or a restorative one.

Why it matters: Batura cited previous peer-reviewed analysis showing roughly 2,800,000 acres in Central and Eastern Washington that need restoration and a Forest Service estimate that Washington needs about six times more prescribed burning than is currently conducted. The Nature Conservancy described the Cle Elum Ridge project as a living laboratory to test restoration methods, invest in workforce training and demonstrate how mechanical thinning plus prescribed fire reduces fire severity.

Details and evidence: Batura described mastication (mechanical thinning) as the primary initial treatment on parts of the site and provided recent treatment tallies: about 488 acres of commercial harvest, 1,581 acres of mastication (pre-commercial thinning), 86 acres of pre-commercial thinning where masticators cannot drive, and 332 acres subsequently treated with prescribed fire. She said DNR and partners have completed forest-health treatments on about 800,000 acres across Central Washington as of May of the previous year.

Batura also described workforce and training efforts tied to the TREX (Prescribed Fire Training Exchange) model, and said the Nature Conservancy now hosts burn bosses and prescribed-fire specialists who can train crews and export that knowledge to other regions. She and other presenters emphasized that restoration is not a one‑time activity: many treated areas require follow-up prescribed fire on a roughly 10–15 year interval to maintain desired conditions.

Questions from legislators focused on treatment types and recurrence. Senator Shelly Short asked how much of the treated landscape was commercial harvest versus mastication; Batura said most of the work is mastication because trees being removed are small diameter and that commercial harvest acreage was limited in the recent tally.

Context and limits: Batura credited HB 1168 and the 20‑year Forest Health Strategic Plan for creating a roadmap and funding mechanism that allowed the work to scale. She also noted barriers remain, including workforce shortages and liability concerns for prescribed fire; she said the Nature Conservancy and partners are supporting legislation patterned on Oregon and California to create a prescribed‑fire claims fund to address liability and encourage more burns.

The Nature Conservancy presentation and Q&A occurred during the committee’s Jan. 13 work session; presenters and legislators repeatedly described the project as a demonstration that combines thinning, prescribed burning and workforce development.

Provenance: The committee introduced Nature Conservancy presenters and the Cle Elum Ridge account begins in the transcript where Darcy Batura begins describing the site and ends when she finishes her prepared remarks and takes questions.