Photo caption: Trees burned by a forest fire along Highway 245 south of Dooley Mountain Summit. Photo by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives, 2016.
When we shared our Collaboration Notes story about the Oregon Wildfire Sustainable Funding Work Group in February of this year, Oregon’s wildfire season was a future off in the distance.
Now, it is a very present reality for all of us across the state.
As of this month, Oregon is experiencing its most severe wildfire season in recorded history, with over 2.3 million acres burned – far outpacing our last record-breaking season in 2024.
The ongoing wildfire crisis in Oregon is devastating to communities, wildlife, and our ecosystems. And, the only way to build a safer and more resilient Oregon is through an integrated approach to wildfire preparedness, response, and mitigation. Only with all three will we start to see real change in our wildfire seasons.
The “Fire 35” Wildfire Sustainable Funding Work Group effort led to passage of HB 3940, which in part created a permanent fund for mitigation efforts. Since then, the Oregon State Fire Marshal (OSFM) held listening sessions across the state to better understand the needs of communities around mitigation and resilience. This effort identified a clear need for “regionalization” of efforts.
Oregon Consensus is supporting the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office in connecting with its many partners to inform how regionalization might play out in this context, including structuring a collective action platform across nine districts which each have a Risk Reduction Specialist. This collective action approach enhances wildfire risk reduction and resilience happening at the local level. The concept would support shared and consistent communication structures, training, grant support, leveraging local resources, and broader inclusive engagement. Partners emphasized the importance of place-based design; tailoring the platform to the unique needs of each region.
This regionalization approach emphasizes the importance of supporting local communities in doing proactive work to, over time, minimize the strain of wildfire response. Only then will communities actually start to see relief. By developing resources locally, we are creating more resilient systems across local communities, and, in turn, lowering the severity and damage of wildfires over time.
Wildfires are going to be a part of Oregon for the foreseeable future. And, it is only with collaborative approaches – where entities are working together – can we truly enable a cohesive wildfire strategy for our state.
Oregon Consensus’ efforts with the Oregon State Fire Marshal are a testament to a collaborative approach. Complex issues, like wildfires, require more than one expert or viewpoint to solve them. It takes time to build trust, to build a collective action that works both at the state-level and within local communities.
Oregon retains unusual strengths in this regard. Despite polarization, institutional distrust, and economic strain, many communities across the state still possess traditions of practical cooperation rooted in place, ecology, and mutual dependence.