SR-903 Cannot Handle a Mass Evacuation — And New Development Is Making It Worse

SR-903 is an 10-mile, two-lane highway. It is the only paved road in or out of Roslyn, Ronald, Lake Cle Elum, and Salmon La Sac. On a busy summer weekend, an estimated 10,000 people are in the communities and recreation areas along this corridor. In a wildfire evacuation, every one of them has to get out on the same road — at the same time — while emergency vehicles try to get in.

The road was not built for this. And the situation is getting worse, not better.

One Road. Two Lanes. 5,000 Vehicles.

Traffic engineers measure road capacity in vehicles per hour per lane. On a two-lane road like SR-903, moving at 25 mph in a real-world small-town environment — accounting for intersections, RVs, panicked drivers, and the inevitable accident — realistic outbound capacity is approximately 200 to 350 vehicles per hour.

On a peak summer weekend, the Roslyn, Ronald, Lake Cle Elum, and Salmon La Sac area holds an estimated 10,000 people — residents, Suncadia guests, cabin owners, campers, and hikers. At two people per vehicle, that is roughly 5,000 vehicles that need to exit on SR-903.

Assuming 350 vehicles per hour: over 14 hours to clear the road.

Wildfires in dry Eastern Washington conditions move at 1 to 6 miles per hour in grassland — faster with wind. The corridor from Roslyn to Cle Elum is approximately 5 miles. A fast-moving fire with wind could cut SR-903 in under an hour.

Fourteen hours out. One hour to lose the road. That is the gap SR-903 residents are living with every fire season.

This Has Already Happened — The Camp Fire Is the Warning

In November 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, California. It killed 85 people. Most of them died in their cars, trying to get out on roads that could not move people fast enough. The fire overtook the evacuation.

Local officials have drawn the comparison explicitly. A former fire management officer for the Cle Elum Ranger District said of the SR-903 corridor: “It’s staring you in the face. Oh boy, I see similarities here.”

Kittitas County’s emergency management coordinator has said: “We are in a fire-prone area. We have dodged a lot of bullets, but luck is not a plan.”

Roslyn is not a low-risk outlier. The Roslyn Fire Department reports that Roslyn ranks in the 100th percentile of wildfire risk in Washington State — and the 99th percentile nationally. The 2017 Jolly Mountain Fire burned 36,000 acres in the Cle Elum Ranger District and triggered the first full-scale law enforcement evacuation callout in Kittitas County history. Residents of Roslyn and Ronald were placed under Level 2 evacuation notices. Lake Cle Elum was under Level 3 — leave now.

We have been here before. We will be here again.

Kittitas County Already Knows — SR-903 Is Ranked #1

SR-903 is ranked highest on Kittitas County’s list of evacuation routes most in need of strengthening against wildfire. The county has received a $10 million federal grant to thin forests and clear brush along the corridor. Over 1,500 acres of fuel reduction treatments have already been completed near Roslyn and Cle Elum Ridge.

That work matters. Reducing fuel load along the corridor buys time. But no amount of brush clearing changes the fundamental problem: it is still one lane out.

As one Kittitas County emergency official put it: “All you need is one jack-knifed trailer and it screws up everything.”

One accident. One tree down. One panicked driver who stops in the middle of the road. And 5,000 vehicles — with a wildfire closing in — go nowhere.

New Development Will Add Thousands More Vehicles to SR-903 & Bullfrog Road

The evacuation math above is based on today’s population along SR-903. Development currently underway or approved will significantly increase the number of people — and vehicles — that depend on this road.

Bullfrog Flats — 1,384 new housing units approved

Blue Fern Development acquired the 1,100-acre Bullfrog Flats site in Cle Elum from Sun Communities in June 2025. The approved master plan includes 810 single-family homes, 374 townhomes, 150 apartments, and 50 affordable housing units — a total of 1,384 new residences. The site also includes a 75-acre light industrial and commercial park.

At 1.5 vehicles per household, Bullfrog Flats alone adds an estimated 2,076 vehicles to SR-903’s evacuation load if they were to head towards Cle Elum along SR903.

Forterra Number 4 Mine Cleanup — heavy equipment on SR-903

Forterra received a $1.78 million EPA Brownfields Cleanup Grant to remediate the Roslyn Number 4 Mine site behind City Hall. Remediation operations will route haul trucks carrying hazardous waste out of Roslyn via SR-903 — adding heavy vehicle traffic to the corridor during the cleanup period.

Full details: Forterra’s 30-acre acquisition and what it means for Roslyn

Suncadia and ongoing Upper Kittitas County growth

Suncadia Resort, located at I-90 exit 80 on Bullfrog Road, continues to expand its resort and residential footprint. Combined with the broader growth trend in Upper Kittitas County documented at the future of Roslyn WA, the number of people depending on SR-903 is increasing every year — while the road stays the same width it was in 1939.

One Accident Stops Everything

Under normal traffic conditions, SR-903 functions adequately as a two-lane rural highway. The problem is not normal conditions. The problem is the scenario where everyone needs to leave at once.

In a mass evacuation:

• Outbound evacuation traffic and inbound emergency vehicles share the same two lanes
• A single disabled vehicle, accident, or road obstruction halts the entire outbound flow
• There is no detour. There is no alternate route. Vehicles that cannot move forward cannot go anywhere.
• Cell networks become overloaded during mass emergencies, making real-time coordination difficult
• Residents with animals, mobility limitations, or medical equipment need more time — and that time does not exist if evacuation orders come late

The geometry of SR-903 does not change based on how prepared individual residents are. A perfectly prepared household that leaves immediately at Level 2 is still stuck behind 4,000 other vehicles on the same two lanes.

The Bigger Question Nobody Is Asking at Public Meetings

Every new housing development approved along SR-903 adds vehicles to an evacuation corridor that is already mathematically inadequate. The Bullfrog Flats approval added 1,384 households. Future development proposals will add more.

The question that should be asked at every Roslyn City Council meeting, every Kittitas County planning commission hearing, and every development approval process is this: has anyone calculated whether SR-903 can evacuate the total population this and/or other developments in the area will add — combined with the population already here — before a fast-moving fire cuts the road?

If that calculation has been done, it has not been made public. If it has not been done, it should be.