Thirteen Eastern Washington counties at “high” fire danger levels

Thirteen Eastern Washington counties sit in "high" fire danger levels Tuesday and Benton County sits at "extremely high" levels.

Wyatt Leighton with the Southeast Region Department of Natural Resources says several factors go into the regulations, including department preference, which may be part of the reason why Benton is the only county at "extremely high" levels.

"The system isn't perfect, you know fire danger doesn't drastically change as soon as you pass a county line, and so some of it is local jurisdictional preference of where they set the fire danger rating," says Leighton.

Leighton adds that the region is expected to see cooler temperatures next week.

The fire danger levels determine if the DNR issues burn permits or not, but it doesn't necessarily correlate with burn bans.

Grant, Franklin, Walla Walla and Yakima counties all have burn bans in effect. Benton has restrictions in place, but not a complete ban according to the DNR fire level map.