Northeast Washington

Tri-county + Colville Tribes nest inside WAMAS

Problem

Rural towns face crises (floods, fires, economic shocks) with limited local capacity. Without formal mutual aid, communities struggle alone or wait for distant help.

Solution

Washington's Intrastate Mutual Aid System (WAMAS) is chapter 38.56 RCW (2011): every county, city and town is a member by default, and a federally recognized tribe joins by sending the Military Department a resolution; the department's WAMAS page lists the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Squaxin Island Tribe as tribal members and posts the signed 2025 Operations and Deployment Guide. The Northeast Washington Interagency Communications Center (NEWICC) in Colville opened in June 2008 as a joint DNR, Forest Service and BLM dispatch center, and the Stevens County Community Wildfire Protection Plan (2008) records mutual aid agreements between Ferry and Stevens County fire districts and with DNR. The Colville Tribes run an emergency management office that led a 2023 tabletop exercise and an EOC during the July 2026 Kaiser Canyon Fire; the book's description of tribal guidance on Type 3 teams and county resource requests was not found.

Patterns used: Regional Mutual Aid Protocols

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