Oregon Issues Wildfire Risk Map

A new wildfire risk map has drawn questions from Oregon homeowners, reports Tiffany Olin for KTVL. Olin writes, “people across Southern Oregon have received letters in the mail from the Department of Forestry classifying their property as high or extreme risk and within the wildland-urban interface.” But the letters have raised questions since they don’t indicate how homeowners should respond. Derek Gasperini, Public Affairs Officer for Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), said for now, homeowners just need to be aware of the risk to their home. 

According to the article, “The Oregon State Fire Marshal will be passing defensible space codes and other regulations by December of this year that are expected to go into effect by April of 2023.” Gasperini said grants will be available to help homeowners pay for defensible space upgrades, which will be required as part of Senate Bill 762, “passed as a response to the 2020 Labor Day fires across the state.”

Planetizen recently covered a proposal to build a community-wide fire perimeter in Paradise, California. The proposal is in part an acknowledgement that fire protection measures can be expensive or impractical for renters, mobile home owners, and other residents in diverse housing types.