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The recipe for a wildfire in Whatcom County doesn’t require many ingredients: Combine a long period of hot, dry weather that turns vegetation into tinder with a strong wind sweeping east across the Cascades. Then, just add a spark.

“Everything has to align perfectly here for something like that to happen,” said Jenny Coe, community wildfire resilience coordinator at the Whatcom Conservation District. “But it can, and we know the conditions that would allow that to happen are increasing.”

Summers are getting hotter and drier in western Washington due to human-caused climate change, meaning even typically soggy areas of the state are at increasing risk of wildfire. Armed with this knowledge, leaders and communities in Whatcom are determining how to best prepare for the day the fires arrive.