How Oregon can prepare
At the state and local levels, officials are key to helping their communities be resilient and prepared for wildfire. Proactive planning – through programs, services, local codes, and legislation – can mitigate devastation and save lives.
Whether your city is socked in by smoke each summer or your town is all too familiar with our Ready, Set, Go! system, the arrival of wildfire in your community is a matter of when, not if. So let’s make sure we’re prepared.
1. Learn how wildfire is part of the West
Since time immemorial, wildfire has affected the lands Oregonians now call home. As we’ve increasingly put our human mark on the landscape, we’ve overburdened wildfire-prone lands and changed the way wildfire behaves, often leading to more frequent and severe wildfires.
Thankfully, Oregon officials have taken steps to ensure we’re prepared when wildfire arrives next. Legislation like 2021’s SB 762 brought us essential programs and investments, such as home-hardening standards, defensible-space requirements, clean-air shelters, and more.
It’s now up to us to ensure those programs continue, by backing it with sufficient, predictable, ongoing funding.
2. Prepare now to improve wildfire response
The work to respond to wildfire begins well before fire starts moving toward our communities. How our leaders plan for wildfire response can change the outcomes for residents.
Cities and counties can start with robust, inclusive engagement to create wildfire-adapted communities. Other smart moves:
- Improving transportation networks and local codes for evacuation and firefighting response
- Establishing wildfire-risk mitigation requirements for new development
- Preparing now for disaster-recovery efforts
- Investing in Community Wildfire Protection Planning and Natural Hazards Mitigation Planning
- Not building out into high wildfire hazard areas in the wildland-urban interface, known as the WUI
3. Learn how Oregon keeps communities out of the line of fire
For the last 50 years, Oregon has kept our communities compact and more defensible against encroaching wildfire by limiting development in the wildland-urban interface (WUI).
Thanks to the unique way Oregon builds our cities and towns, we’ve suffered fewer deaths, loss of homes and businesses, destruction of habitat, and damage to water services from wildfires than other states. This tool is known as the urban growth boundary, and each of Oregon’s 241 cities and towns has one.
Our best prevention against wildfire destruction to our communities is to support planning and legislation that focuses development inside our existing communities – just compare the facts on how land use laws that contain sprawl mitigate wildfire destruction.
When we build our cities from the inside, rather than pushing outward, we’re investing in community safety.
