‘Stop taking my money’: Jake says lands commissioner’s op-ed ignores what’s actually fueling WA wildfires

Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove penned an op-ed in The Seattle Times calling Washington’s devastating 2026 wildfire season “an urgent call to action” and pointing squarely at climate change. KIRO host Jake Skorheim said Upthegrove left out the most important part of the story.

“You notice what he didn’t mention,” Jake said on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “He said five years ago. He didn’t say a year ago. Because in 2025, Washington state lawmakers slashed the state’s wildfire prevention and preparedness budget by 50%.”

KIRO fill-in host Greg Tomlin said the op-ed read like it could have been written by former Washington Governor Jay Inslee.

“I think it’s overly simplistic and ignores a lot of the complexities when it comes to what’s going on with forest fires,” Greg said. “This is the danger of getting tunnel vision on one topic and just running with that as the answer to every question.”

The Roadless Rule and the graph

Jake pulled up data from the Washington Forest Protection Association showing acres burned in Washington from 1985 through 2021. He said the numbers tell a clear story.

“If you go back to 1985 and you see the acres burned in Washington, on average it’s about 91,000 acres a year,” Jake said. “Very consistent all the way through 1999, 2000.”

Then in 2001, the Clinton administration’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule took effect, blocking road construction and maintenance across millions of acres of federal forest. Jake said the graph showed an immediate and sustained spike in acres burned.

“The only thing that changed in 2001 is the Roadless Rule, and you can see a stark difference,” Jake said. “If you’re telling me that’s the year that climate change kicked in, I’m not going to believe you.”

The U.S. Forest Service filed a proposal in August 2026 to rescind the rule, arguing it has contributed to the more than 36 million acres of forest that have burned since it was adopted, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Jake noted the rule prevented access for firefighters, blocked forest management, and eliminated the kind of controlled burns that Native Americans had practiced for centuries.

“All this stuff builds up. If you don’t get rid of some of this stuff, then it gets really bad,” Jake said.

He added that the 900,000 acres burned this season released greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.9 million cars, or 64% of all cars driven in Washington.

“All this forest burning that is just releasing this stuff up into the air,” Jake said. “And before, they were burning at a tenth of the rate.”

‘The juice is not worth the squeeze’

Jake pointed out the broader problem is that Washington taxpayers are paying sky-high costs in the name of fighting climate change with little to show for it.

“How much of the money that you’re collecting to fight climate change is actually being used to fight climate change? You find out it’s less than 10%,” Jake said. “The juice is not worth the squeeze.”

He said the frustration is simple: if the investment isn’t producing results, stop making people pay for it.

“You can’t keep telling me that it’s this thing, but if I’m not getting results for all the money you’re taking from me, stop taking my money,” Jake said. “Taxation without representation — it doesn’t work. We don’t like it in this country.”

Greg agreed, saying the state’s single-minded focus on climate change has produced diminishing returns.

“You look at the return on investment that the state of Washington and taxpayers have gotten from our leaders in terms of fighting climate change, and it’s just made the cost of living skyrocket with little to no return, and shady accounting, and no accountability,” Greg said. “Where did the money go? No one’s asking those questions.”

Jake’s frustration cuts across party lines.

“I don’t care what political party,” Jake said. “Just stop taking money if it’s not doing anything.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3