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THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2022
New statewide map outlines wildfi re risk
Tax lots placed
in risk categories
By CASSANDRA PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon’s new wildfi re risk map
was taking a long time to load on
Thursday as people across the state
searched their addresses to fi nd out
whether their homes were in the
red.
The Oregon Wildfi re Risk
Explorer places every single tax
lot in a risk category ranging from
zero to extreme.
Large stretches of c entral, e ast-
ern and s outhern Oregon landed in
the red extreme wildfi re risk cat-
egory based on weather, climate
topography, vegetation and nearby
buildings.
About half of the 1.8 million
tax lots in the state are now cate-
gorized as being part of the wild-
land-urban interface . It’s a desig-
nation for homes and communities
that are more vulnerable to wildfi re
because they are intermingled with
forestland and wilderness areas.
Jackson County Fire Chief Bob
Horton said the map will be helpful
for identifying where to focus fi re
prevention work in s outhern Ore-
gon, where fi re risk is very high in
a lot of communities.
“The new map gives us granu-
larity to explore the risk levels at
neighborhood levels, at parcel lev-
els, where prior to this we didn’t
have the scientifi c backing to it,”
Horton said. “We had hunches on
where we thought the higher risk
areas were.”
The map also could have expen-
sive consequences for some prop-
erty owners and developers because
the state is also crafting new build-
ing codes and zoning requirements
to help protect homes in high fi re
risk areas.
The new rules are still in the
works and won’t be approved until
later this year, but they will apply to
about 120,000 properties — about
8% of all tax lots statewide — that
are both inside the wildland-ur-
ban interface and labeled as hav-
Kristyna Wentz-Graff /Oregon Public Broadcasting
Mary Bradshaw’s fi re-hardened home in Elkhorn.
ing high or extreme fi re risk. There
is an appeal process for property
owners who want to challenge the
state’s wildfi re risk classifi cation of
their tax lot.
The mapping process stems
from a sweeping wildfi re prepared-
ness package lawmakers passed
last year in response to the wild-
fi res that burned 4,000 homes and
more than a million acres of Ore-
gon in 2020.
Defensible space
S tate Sen. Jeff Golden, an Ash-
land Democrat who led the eff ort
to pass that legislation, said there is
state funding to help property own-
ers comply with new requirements
to clear defensible space around
homes in high fi re risk areas and
use fi re-resistant materials for new
construction.
“I really understand that people
would be anxious about this,” he
said. “We now have to live diff er-
ently with wildfi re. We were shown
really clearly what the future looks
like in the last couple of years and
… lot of people were badly hurt,
but we survived.”
Now, he said, the state has a
chance to prepare for future fi res
and better protect homes and
communities.
“A whole lot of the most import-
ant work is relatively easy and rela-
tively inexpensive,” he said.
Some of the protective measures
that experts recommend are clean-
ing out gutters, cutting lower limbs
off trees and removing invasive
species from around the home, like
blackberry bushes.
The s tate fi re m arshal and the
Oregon Department of Consumer
and Business Services are devel-
oping rules for clearing defensible
space around homes and applying
wildfi re hazard building code stan-
dards. The new wildfi re risk map
will determine where the upcom-
ing rules will apply.
Brian Mulhollen, a property
owner in Gold Hill in s outhern
Oregon, said he expected his home
to be in the extreme risk category.
He’s seen several wildfi res near his
property in recent years.
“Most of s outhern Oregon,
especially the Rogue Valley, is
extreme,” he said.
As a former battalion chief for a
fi refi ghting unit and current manager
of a helicopter company that helps
fi ght fi res, Mulhollen said he knew
his home needs at least 100 feet of
defensible space around it that is
cleared of fl ammable vegetation.
But he worries about other
homeowners who suddenly fi nd
themselves in the extreme fi re risk
category on the map.
“Most property owners don’t
know what to do with that,” he said.
Mulhollen had help preparing
his property for fi re season from
the Wildfi re Protection Corps, a
youth training group that has been
deployed to limb trees and remove
brush that could spread wildfi res to
people’s homes.
He said the state needed the
push from Legislature to help prop-
erty owners prepare.
“Oregon is way behind on wild-
fi re risk analysis compared with
other fi re-prone Western states,” he
said.
Insurance costs
Some property owners wor-
ried that the new risk assessment
would aff ect their homeowner’s
insurance.
Last month, Portland resident
Dwayne Canfi eld got a letter from
the insurance company that had
been covering his vacation rental
house in Sisters.
“They sent us a non renewal
notice saying we decided not to
renew this policy because of the
wildfi re risk in the area,” he said.
“I was shocked. We have seen fi res
within a mile and a half of here, but
I didn’t see it as a huge risk. We’re
four blocks from the city center.”
Canfi eld was able to fi nd another
insurance provider without spend-
ing more money on a policy, but he
expects to see more homeowners
in the same situation he faced now
that the state has put every property
into a risk category.
Kenton Brine, the president of
the Northwest Insurance Council,
said insurance companies across
the region are already doing their
own wildfi re risk mapping, so a
risk map from the state won’t nec-
essarily make a big diff erence in
their policy decisions.
“It won’t come as a surprise to
insurance companies that there is
wildfi re risk in those red areas,” he
said.
As wildfi re risk is growing in
the region, Brine said some insur-
ance companies are changing their
approach. “We have seen insurers
who have changed their risk appe-
tite — even prior to the massive
Labor Day fi res in Oregon,” he said.
Brine said most homeown-
ers should have no problem fi nd-
ing some insurance for their homes
even in extreme fi re risk areas.
Golden said he and offi cials with
the Oregon Department of Forestry
have been talking with Oregon
Insurance Commissioner Andrew
Stolfi about the eff ects wildfi re risk
mapping could have on people’s
insurance policies.
“That is a real thing. We’re
going to have to be looking at that,”
he said. “The wildfi res in the West,
all over the West, not just Oregon,
have become a hazard. That really
turns the insurance market upside
down.”
US testing new fi re retardant
A previous reliance
on one supplier
By KEITH RIDLER
Associated Press
BOISE — U.S. offi cials are test-
ing a new wildfi re retardant after
two decades of buying millions of
gallons annually from one supplier,
but watchdogs say the expensive
strategy is overly fi xated on aerial
attacks at the expense of hiring more
fi re-line digging ground crews.
The Forest Service used more
than 50 million gallons of retardant
for the fi rst time in 2020 as increas-
ingly destructive wildfi res plague
the West. It exceeded 50 million
gallons again last year to fi ght some
of the largest and longest-duration
wildfi res in history in California
and other states. The fi re retardant
cost those two years reached nearly
$200 million.
Over the previous 10 years, the
agency used 30 million gallons
annually.
“No two wildfi res are the same,
and thus it’s critical for fi re manag-
ers to have diff erent tools available
to them for diff erent circumstances
a fi re may present,” the Forest Ser-
vice said in an email. “Fire retar-
dant is simply one of those tools.”
The Forest Service said tests
started last summer are continu-
ing this summer with a magne-
sium-chloride-based retardant from
Fortress.
Fortress contends its retardants
are eff ective and better for the envi-
ronment than products off ered by
Perimeter Solutions. That com-
pany says its ammonium-phos-
phate-based retardants are superior.
Fortress started in 2014 with
mainly former wildland fi refi ghters
who aimed to create a more eff ec-
tive fi re retardant that’s better for
the environment. It has facilities
in California, Montana and Wyo-
ming, and describes itself as the
only alternative to fertilizer-based
fi re retardants.
The company is headed by Chief
Executive Offi cer Bob Burnham,
who started his career as a hotshot
crew member fi ghting wildfi res and
ultimately rose to become a Type 1
incident commander, directing hun-
dreds of fi refi ghters against some
of the nation’s largest wildfi res. He
often called in aircraft to disperse
plumes of red fi re retardant, a deci-
sion he said he wonders about now
after learning more about fertiliz-
er-based retardants and developing
a new retardant.
“This new fi re retardant is bet-
ter,” he said. “It’s going to be a
lot less damaging to our sensitive
planet resources, and it’s going to
be a lot better fi re retardant on the
ground.”
The main ingredient in Fortress
products, magnesium chloride, is
extracted from the Great Salt Lake
in Utah, a method and process the
company says is more environ-
mentally friendly and less green-
house-gas producing than mining
and processing phosphate. The For-
est Service last summer tested the
company’s FR-100, and this sum-
mer said it will test a version called
Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP Photo
A plane dropped retardant on a wildfi re near homes in Laguna Beach in
California in February.
FR-200.
Perimeter Solutions, which has
facilities and equipment through-
out the West, has had a number of
name and ownership changes over
the years but has dominated the
market for more than two decades.
The
company’s
Phos-Chek
LC-95A is the world’s most used
fi re retardant. The company is tran-
sitioning to a new retardant called
Phos-Chek LCE20-Fx, which the
company said is made out of food-
grade ingredients, making it a
cleaner product.
“We’re certain that the products
that we make are the safest, most
eff ective, most environmentally
friendly products available,” said
Chief Executive Offi cer Edward
Goldberg. “We’ve spent decades
in partnership with the (Forest
Service).”
Phosphate is mined in mul-
tiple places. Goldberg said they
get phosphate both domestically,
including from Idaho, and inter-
nationally. He declined to go into
detail, but said the company hasn’t
relied on China or Ukraine, and has
substituted other suppliers for Rus-
sia and Belarus.
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