Wildfire

Wildfire is a natural part of our western ecosystem. However, humans have increased the frequency and intensity of wildfires. Humans have also expanded the areas prone to wildfire through manmade climate change, sprawling development into the wildland urban interface (WUI), and over-suppression of natural wildfire. Oregon’s fire season has grown in length by an average of 21 percent since 1970, resulting in loss of lives, homes, businesses, natural areas, and communities.

The cost of containing wildfires and rebuilding from them has reached half a billion dollars—and we all pay those costs  through increased taxes, utility costs, insurance costs, health care expenses, and more. The Oregon legislature responded to the devastating 2020 Labor Day fires by establishing the state’s first comprehensive wildfire mitigation and preparedness program, creating a structure across 11 state agencies and Oregon State University to coordinate investments and programs in wildfire mitigation and preparedness. 1000 Friends of Oregon advocated for passage of that bill, which also established the Wildfire Programs Advisory Council (WPAC), on which 1000 Friends of Oregon Associate Director and Managing Attorney Mary Kyle McCurdy serves.

Thanks to SB 762, Oregon has adopted a defensible space code to reduce flammable materials around structures and a wildfire-resilient building code, and has wildfire education programs, technical assistance for communities, investments in additional equipment, utility shut-off plans during wildfires, and more. But the successful use of most of these programs depends on the voluntary actions of individual property owners and communities to use them.

1000 Friends has developed a ground-breaking tool to help Oregonians and their communities become more wildfire safe: Our Wildfire Ready Oregon website. In Oregon, our land use conservation and development system—our urban growth boundaries—has meant that we have not developed into the WUI at the rate that our neighbors have in other western states, and therefore we have been spared some of the most devastating impacts of wildfires. But Oregon risks losing that edge as developers, private property interests, corporations and even some cities irresponsibly push for expanding UGBs outward and allowing more commercial uses, tourist destinations, second homes, and subdivisions across our natural landscapes and working lands—especially in the WUI.

Join us in building Oregon’s wildfire resiliency, helping our communities become wildfire safe, and protecting our natural areas and working lands.