Kevin Van De Wege, one of seven candidates for the Commissioner of Public Lands seat, was the sole candidate to appear at a Sequim forum hosted by the Olympic Peninsula Fire Commissioners Association on July 25.

Keith Cortner, president of the association and a commissioner for Clallam2 Fire-Rescue, said two other candidates — Patrick DePoe and Sue Kuehl Pederson — replied to say they were unable to attend at Clallam County Fire District 3’s Training Center in Carlsborg.

Cortner said he did not hear from other candidates after multiple attempts.

Fire district leaders from across Clallam and Jefferson counties attended the forum in person and via Zoom to ask questions.

Van De Wege, a Democrat from Lake Sutherland (west of Port Angeles), has served as a firefighter for District 3 in the Sequim area for 23 years and as a state senator for the 24th legislative district since 2017. He appears in the open primary Aug. 6 with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election.

Van De Wege said if elected, he has four major priorities, including paying and training Department of Natural Resources firefighters more due to the difficulty level of their work and the changing landscape of wildfires.

He said he also wants DNR to purchase more aircraft to fight fires as leases for aircraft are coming to an end, and the state could recoup costs by leasing purchased aircraft to other states.

Sequim Gazette photo by Matthew Nash Kevin Van De Wege, a candidate for the Commissioner for Public Lands, center, answers questions before a forum July 25 for the Olympic Peninsula Fire Commissioners Association from Clallam County Fire District 3 board chairman Jeff Nicholas and Jefferson County Fire Protection District 2 commissioner Marcia Kelbon, also a candidate for Van De Wege’s current senate seat.

Another of his priorities includes increasing prescribed burns, with him saying as a legislator he advocated for more but has received push back that the state allegedly wouldn’t meet federal air quality standards.

“That doesn’t take into account when fires burn all the pollution that’s going into the environment,” Van De Wege said.

He said he also envisions growing the partnership between DNR and the Department of Corrections and increasing inmates’ pay to minimum wage to help them acclimate better once released.

“When they transition into society with skills and money in their pocket, recidivism goes down,” he said.

“They tell you it does make a difference and they are successful when they go back into communities.”

Van De Wege also said controlling the amount of burnable materials by maintaining harvest rotations is important.

“Keeping up on the schedule is the best thing a commissioner can do,” he said.

He adds that timber harvests “does a lot more than control the amount of fuel we have, it also creates hundreds-of-millions of dollars in revenues.”

Asked about what sets him apart from other candidates, Van De Wege said some candidates want to decrease timber harvest, but he feels it could add to wildfires and diminish the sawmill industry.

“Growth in catastrophic wildfires are trending to get worse,” he said.

“Last year 350 homes burned … We all feel effects of fire every August and September when we’re breathing smoke.”

Van De Wege said current Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, who is now running for a U.S. Congressional seat, hasn’t done anything wrong but that “wildfires are evolving.”

“We have to stay on top of them and change strategies as they continue to evolve,” he said. “I don’t think in any of our lifetimes we can sit back and say we have wildfires addressed.”

He said that 53% of forest land in Washington won’t be harvested again and “for environmentalists that’s a huge win.”

When asked about preserving the other 47% for harvest, Van De Wege said he wants DNR to work more with beneficiaries, such as fire districts and libraries to help communities better understand the impact of timber harvest revenues.

One of the many other topics he discussed, Van De Wege said he’s “super passionate” about public access to DNR lands.

For more about the Commissioner of Public Lands candidates, click here.