DARRINGTON, Wash. — Logging has deep roots in the forests just outside the Darrington community.
For generations, loggers and environmentalists have waged bitter battles over these lands.
They've been about as friendly as a chainsaw and tree trunk.
Now, the Darrington Collaborative is forging an unlikely alliance.
It was born out of the 2014 Oso landslide. It was designed to maximize economic and natural resources and help the surrounding community recover.
Steve Skaglund, who runs 3 Rivers Cutting, said logging is "a great way of life. It has treated me and my family very well."
"Most people probably wouldn't think I'd be friends with Steve (Skaglund)," saud Megan Birzell.
Birzell is a member of the Wilderness Society, one of the groups working with loggers and lumber mills to thin U.S. Forest Service land for the common good.
"We have a lot of shared values," she says. "We all enjoy these woods and want to see them continue into the future and have places for our kids to play and work."
Darrington's Hampton Lumber Mill is a critical cog.
Research has shown forests must be thinned and managed to avoid disease and wildfires.
Hampton Lumber Mill's Anjolene Price said a healthy forest means a healthy economy.
"We employ about 170 people and we use a multiplier of about two. So, there are two jobs created outside the mill for every one job in the mill. You're talking a town of about 1,400, so that's a pretty big impact," Price said.
The collaboration comes with the prospect of a wicked fire season in western Washington upon us, and more likely to come as the planet warms.
"We're finding that fires are becoming more and more frequent, so in dry years like this we do become concerned about it," said U.S. Forest Service Ranger Dave Kendrick.
It all makes partnerships like Darrington's even more important, with once bitter enemies finding common ground on the forest floor.