Whatever your weekend plans hold

Client: Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Channel: Facebook
Date: August 7, 2026

Overview

Brief: Washington was running ahead of any fire season in three decades and the audience was making weekend plans. Five overlapping authorities had burn restrictions in effect at once, each with a different boundary. The post had to get people who'd never asked to hear from a state agency to cancel the bonfire.
Approach: Led with the ask, because a reader deciding on Friday afternoon needs to know what to do before they care who's telling them. Held the statistics back to the second line so they read as justification for a request already made. Sequenced the five jurisdictions from most specific to broadest so nobody had to work out which one applied to them. Closed on the 7,500 people working the fires, so the last thing readers see is who they're helping.
Result: 553 reactions and 98 shares, with 24 comments underneath. On a compliance ask, shares are the number that counts: 98 people carried the restriction to their own networks unprompted, which is reach the agency didn't have to pay for or repeat.

The copy

Facebook post from Washington State Department of Natural Resources opening with the line about weekend plans not including any burning, alongside photographs of a hand crew hiking single file along a road, firefighters working a smoky burn area, and a firefighter felling a tree with a chainsaw. — As published, August 7, 2026

Washington State DNR · Facebook

Whatever your weekend plans hold, please make sure they don't include any burning.

With a red flag warning in effect, 18 large fires burning across the landscape, and over 630,000 acres burned so far this year, Washington is experiencing a more extreme wildfire season than we've seen in 30+ years. And it is only the beginning of August.

All outdoor burning is currently banned on DNR-managed lands. This includes campfires and the use of charcoal briquets. The Governor's statewide burn ban is also in effect, which means no yard debris burning, trash disposal, land clearing, weed abatement or bonfires. Our friends at Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission and Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife also have burn bans in place.

Your local fire districts might have more restrictive burn bans in place, so please check with them too.

There are more than 7,500 people helping protect us from flames across Washington right now. Please do your part to help them by ensuring there isn't another spark.

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