The Palisades

A history of the Palisades community is available via the Douglas County P.U.D., including historic photographs. Check it out.

As far as the history of the Palisades fire protection effort goes, that’s really a story that should be told by rancher Molly Linville, a Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioner.

I invite you to watch this video interview with her thanks to NCWLife. You’ll quickly realize what an amazing person Molly is, and, personally, I think we’re very lucky to be her neighbors.

And, hopefully, some of us from Rimrock Meadows will get to visit with her and ask her to add to this story at some point in the near future.

In the meantime, what I can tell you is what I’ve learned from reading media reports about her progress.

Washington and national media have been following Molly’s efforts to change state law regarding wildfire coverage for ranches like hers and others in the Palisades for nearly decade.

More news about the Palisades efforts at fire protection coverage:

Coping with fire loss, looking for solutions- Capital Press, Dec. 7, 2017

Excerpt:

Like many ranchers throughout the West, Molly Linville is trying to recover from a horrific fire season, but she’s also is trying to change how firefighters view rangeland and a state wildfire policy that allows them to let it burn.

Washington Ranchers Push To Create Fire Fighting Teams In 'No Man's Lands'- NW News Network, Sept. 9, 2019

Excerpt:

It was a hot, dry summer afternoon when Molly Linville glanced out her front windows and noticed a rare storm pushing down the narrow valley where she raises cattle.

Then came five lightning strikes in quick succession. And five plumes of smoke.

She thought things would be OK. She was wrong.

Listen to the KUOW (NPR) story based on this article here.

Rural Washington neighbors fight wildfires in ‘no man’s land’- Cascades PBS, Aug. 23, 2020

Excerpt:

At the end of the 2019 fire season, Linville scoped out the perfect surplus brush truck that would help them squash new fires on their ranch and at neighboring properties. Instead of hooking up hoses to irrigation lines, now they had wheels.

“(The truck) not only gives us, personally, some sense of ownership in our own fate, a little bit, but also, I think our neighbors feel a whole lot better in that there’s at least a little something that we can do,” Linville says.

This is the state legislation that the Molly Linville and the Palisades community were working on when this article was published:

Concerning rangeland fire protection associations, HB 1188 - 2019-20

‘Hanging Out To Dry' In Rural Washington As Residents Push For Their Own Fire Protection Group- Northwest Public Broadcasting, Aug. 18, 2020

An excerpt:

For some people, there are advantages to living in an unprotected area. For one, they don’t have to pay taxes into a fire district or timber taxes to the state.

In 2017, the Sutherland Canyon Fire ripped through this valley, burning more than 27,000 acres and destroying the Linville’s fences and surrounding ranchland.

“I don’t want to overblow it, but it was (like) Dante’s Inferno. Fifty-foot flame lengths. It was going so fast, it was shocking,” Molly Linville said in an earlier interview.

In Dry Eastern Washington, Scientists Look To Rangeland Management To Address Big Fires - Nov. 9, 2020

Excerpt:

Researchers say one of the best tools to manage rangeland is targeted grazing, which can “reduce the potential for devastating wildfire.” In targeted grazing, cattle are turned out to pastures to munch on invasive annual grasses, like cheatgrass. Light to moderate grazing can also be used to help perennial bunch grasses grow.

In one area of central Washington’s Moses Coulee, called the Palisades, rancher Molly Linville has used targeted grazing since 2011. For Linville’s KV Ranch, in arid shrub-steppe habitat, that means she keeps her cows in a tight-knit herd.

Scientists say WA wildfire management must go beyond forests: Better management of dry rangelands east of the Cascades is key to slowing catastrophic fires- Cascades PBS, Nov. 30, 2020

Excerpt:

Linville has her cows nip the grasses once, and then they move on.

“[That’s] important because plants in this environment were evolved to be either burnt or bitten off. They need a disturbance to regenerate,” she says. “So if there’s just one bite, a cow is designed perfectly. They don’t have any teeth. So they don’t rip out the plant. They nip it off.”

Targeted grazing also helps manage weedy annual grasses, like cheatgrass, which can make wildfires burn faster and more intensely. Cheatgrass dries out early in the fire season, blanketing areas where it grows and making it easier for flames to spread.

Opinion | Molly Linville and Robin Priddy: Now is the time to support rangeland recovery and fire preparedness - The Wenatchee World, March 13, 2021

Excerpt:

Once covering over 10 million acres in Eastern Washington, an estimated 80 percent of historic shrubsteppe has been lost or degraded — the 2020 fires have left this land on the brink.

In the Rural West, Some Residents Are Taking Firefighting Into Their Own Hands- The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2021

Excerpt:

Molly Linville vividly remembers the “wall of flame” that tore through the grasslands of her 600-acre ranch during the Sutherland fire four years ago. Working quickly, she managed to guide her 125 cattle into the irrigated field surrounding her home three hours east of Seattle. After that day, Ms. Linville resolved she would never go through an experience like that again.

Molly's Ranch: Stewarding 6,000 acres in the Moses Coulee country- NCWLife, Sept. 18, 2024

(This article accompanies the video interview above.)

Excerpt:

Most of K-V Ranch does not lie inside any fire protection district, and Molly had to almost entirely rebuild her fencing and other infrastructure after the 2017 Sutherland Canyon Fire burned through. The experience led her to campaign for a law allowing local rangeland fire protections associations, which so far aren't permitted in Washington. Such nonprofit organizations have been established in Idaho, Wyoming and Oregon, where they give ranchers training, equipment and fire management coordination to better protect private land without public fire resources. 

Off topic, but interesting

Listen to Molly Linville’s interview in her role as a Washington State Fish and Wildlife Commissioner, circa 2021, with River’s Reach:

Governor renominates Palisades rancher to Fish and Wildlife commission - NCWLife, April 8, 2025

State Senate panel clears Linville's Fish and Wildlife appointment - NCWLife, April 25, 2025