(soft music) - I'm Starla Sampaco in the Crosscut KCTS 9 newsroom.

Spring this year was cold and wet, even by Washington State standards.

Some may assume the rainy season silver lining is a decreased risk of wildfires later in the year, but that may not be the case.

That's because rain does not eliminate the risk of wildfires.

In some places, spring rains are actually likely to worsen fire risk later in the season.

And a lot of that comes down to what happens when you get April showers.

May flowers, or in Washington's case, plants that could easily turn into fire fuel.

According to one fire meteorologist with the State Department of Natural Resources, the rain east of the Cascades was timed almost perfectly to grow a thick crop of an especially fire-risky invasive weed called cheatgrass.

The weed has spreaded particularly well in the lower Columbia Valley and down into the Kittitas and Okanagan valleys.

I'm Starla Sampaco.

Find nonprofit Northwest news every day on crosscut.com.

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