COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019 | 7A
The Cottage Events Venue presents
INTERNATIONAL FOLK MUSIC AWARDS
2017 ARTIST OF THE YEAR
IN CONCERT
Thursday, August 22 at 7 PM
Suggested $15-$20 at the door
The Cottage Events Venue
2915 Row River Rd • cottageevents.com
EVENTS!
FRIDAY AUGUST 23RD – 7:30PM – 10:30PM
Dawn Riding - Folk/Americana
SATURDAY AUGUST 24TH – 7:00PM – 10:00PM
Gumbo Groovem - Gumbo Grass
As always no cover charge and 20 and under are welcome until 8:30 p.m.
For more information call 541-942-8770.
Delve into YOUR past at
our library, located in the
Cottage Grove
Community Center!
Our library is open
Wed - Sat 11:00-4:00
Cottage Grove
Genealogical Society
700 Gibbs Ave.
P.O. Box 388
Cottage Grove, OR 97424
541-942-9570
Future
from A1
get back together?”
Planning for the most
likely disaster events
would appear a reasonable
approach and, for many
preparedness strategies,
there is some crossover.
The American Red
Cross, for instance, sug-
gests that households keep
two food and water sur-
vival kits: one three-day
kit for evacuations and
one two-week supply for a
lengthy home stay. Wheth-
er it be a snowstorm, fire
or earthquake, a stock of
certain basic supplies will
always ensure at least a
modicum of impact miti-
gation.
Beyond that, intercon-
nectedness with one’s
community can be an
invaluable resource in it-
self, easing the burden of
self-reliance. Community
response teams, amateur
radio operation or even
just being acquainted with
a neighbor are all useful
tools in emergency plan-
ning.
Weaving into this fab-
ric of preparedness the
knowledge of one’s envi-
ronment and perception
of future threats, a truly
resilient community may
emerge.
As a community em-
bracing both urban and
rural identities, the Cot-
tage Grove area presents
its own brand of emergen-
cy preparedness challeng-
es. For those leaning more
rurally, the annual threat
of fire has hung particular-
ly heavy in the last several
years.
“Partners in History”
‘THE BOOHER HOUSE’
FOR WOMEN
Now taking applications for interview process
“Providing a safe & sober living environment
for people who require transitional housing”
Call 541-946-3234
Cottage Grove
Garden Supply
Taking the Heat
Alex Rahmlow is the
fire planning coordinator
with the Oregon Depart-
ment of Forestry’s Western
Lane District. Rahmlow
has seen a steady increase
of wildfires in the area, but
he doesn’t think Cottage
Grove’s surrounding com-
munities have it the worst.
“We look better than
Medford,” he said, “and we
look worse than Portland.”
Fire severity and fre-
quency depend on a myri-
ad of factors. Weather, fuel
accumulation and popu-
lation density are some of
the heavier influencers.
“If you look at the last
10 years, we’ve had re-
cord-breaking fire seasons
in and around Cottage
Grove,” he said. “Oregon
as a state — it’s been re-
cord-breaking in both
cost and acres burned. But
then you take this year, for
example, and we’re right
back to normal or a little
bit below average.”
In a January article in
the journal Forest Ecolo-
gy and Management, re-
searchers established that
high severity wildfires
have been on the rise in
the region.
“Both the frequency
and size of large wildfires
have increased in the past
30 years in the western
U.S., as has the length of
the fire season,” it reads.
As climate change pro-
vides conditions for the
growth of more biomass
and fuel due to wetter
winters and springs, the
drying of those fuels is
enhanced by summertime
droughts. The article cites
estimates that half of ob-
served trends in wildfires
are due to such climate
change.
This year to date, the
Oregon Department of
Forestry reports that
there have been 666 fires
in the state, 516 of which
were human-caused and
150 caused by lightning
strikes.
“Cottage Grove is kind
of right on that transition
of coast to cascades,” said
Rahmlow. “And cascades
typically get a lot of the
lightning. So that’s where
a lot of our natural starts
come from.”
The human hand in the
rise of fire events, howev-
er, is undeniable.
“There’s a direct correla-
tion to the number of peo-
ple that are living in the
wildland and the amount
of starts that you have,”
Rahmlow said. “So, the
higher recreation or high-
er density of people living
out there, in and around
forests, you’re going to
have more starts.”
With the steadily in-
creasing human popu-
lation showing no signs
of slowing down, people
may have to get used to
the idea of being vigilantly
fire-conscious. Fortunate-
ly, there are things people
can do to prepare.
“Wildfires are one of
those few natural disasters
that you can actually dras-
tically reduce the impact
of with proper planning
and preparation,” said
Rahmlow.
One way the average
citizen can reduce risk to
their own home is with a
“defensible space” strat-
egy. As the severity of a
fire is largely dependent
on available fuel, manip-
ulating the arrangement
of that fuel can reduce the
likelihood of a severe fire
event.
“If you can separate the
canopy from the ground,
then you’ve effectively re-
duced the potential sever-
ity of a fire in that area,”
Rahmlow said.
This means pruning
tree limbs to eight feet
and keeping ground veg-
etation short in order to
create a vertical separa-
tion between fuel sourc-
es. Likewise, thinning out
crowded trees by spacing
conifers about eight feet
apart can break up the
horizontal continuity.
Rahmlow also recom-
mends a defensible space
of at least 30 feet around a
home.
“Your 30-foot space
should be lean, clean and
green, so 30 feet around
your home is essentially
a no-burn area,” he said.
“Defensible space usually
goes up to 150 feet.”
California’s Camp Fire
in 2018 was the deadliest
and most destructive in
the state’s history, leveling
the town of Paradise.
“Part of the issue was …
you have houses that are
built next to each other
that are within that initial
fuel break,” said Rahmlow,
creating what he called “a
forest of homes.”
California passed a
landmark building code
in 2008 requiring fire safe-
guards for homes, which
included 100 feet of de-
fensible space. According
to The Sacramento Bee,
“about 51 percent of the
350 single-family homes
built after 2008 in the path
of the Camp Fire were un-
damaged.”
With the prospect of
more frequent and intense
fires in the future, making
defensible space could be
in homeowners’ best inter-
ests, even if not required
by the State of Oregon’s
building code.
Rural residents may
have other options as well.
As mentioned previous-
ly in this series, Dorena
residents Dan Holt and
Cal Swanson have taken
it upon themselves to pro-
vide fire safeguards to the
area with the purchase of
their own fire engines.
While finding volun-
teers to be on call for
emergency responses is
its own challenge, perhaps
the hardest will be keeping
the volunteers trained on
how to operate the vehi-
cles, pumps and hoses.
“If I haven’t seen some-
one in six months, they
won’t remember how to
do it,” said Swanson. “You
need a cadre of volunteers
that practice occasionally.”
On top of training and
gathering the manpower,
an additional catch is lia-
bility.
“That’s the challenge, is
if you form a fire district
or a fire department, all
this equipment has to be
certified,” said Swanson.
Because they have no
plan to start their own dis-
trict, Holt and Swanson
cannot provide insurance
to volunteers — any emer-
gency response would
have to be done at a volun-
teer’s own risk.
Swanson, who spent
20 years in the Navy, was
trained to fight shipboard
fires and, although ac-
knowledging the equip-
ment differed, “I feel like
I know how to handle a
hose,” he said.
Legal recourse from
others is a thorny issue as
well.
“I would rely on the
Good Samaritan Law of,
‘I was rendering aid,’” said
Swanson.
Though Oregon does
indeed have Good Sa-
maritan Law under ORS
30.800, the statute pro-
vides protection for “med-
ically trained persons” and
may not protect people
from legal liability result-
ing from a victim’s inju-
ry if the aid provider is
rendering care outside of
their level of training.
Despite these hurdles,
some Dorena residents
have expressed comfort
in knowing that neigh-
bors may be able to come
to their rescue should the
situation arise.
Issues like this, though,
are not always on county
or state agency radar.
To address this, Lane
County is currently con-
ducting a survey of resi-
dents’ perceptions of wild-
fire risk for its Community
Wildfire Protection Plan.
Not only will the survey
provide agencies a sense of
where to focus, but an up-
dated plan may allow the
county to receive federal
funds to reduce wildfire
risk.
Residents can take the
survey by visiting www.
lanecounty.org/fireplan.
At Fault
Just as people in the
Pacific Northwest are be-
coming accustomed to
more wildfires, another
impending disaster rests
invariably in the back of
their minds: Cascadia.
See FAULT 9A
facebook@cottagegrovegardensupply
CottageGrovegardensupply
@gmail.com
M-F 8-6 • Sat 8-4
Sun closed
If we are closed and you have a plant emergency
call 541-232-1125
541.933.4419
2895 Mosby Creek Road
Bring your surfboard and
Sunglasses!
Join the Carousel Group for
the Men from S.U.R.F.
August 25th - 4pm
Calvary Chapel - $5
6 Cubic FT. wheel barrow
steel handle no flat tire
Reg. $119
25-45% OFF Appliances
Up to 30% OFF Power Lawn & Garden
SALE $99
LANDSCAPE AND
BUILDING MATERIALS
Open 7 days a week!
79149 N. River Road
541-942-4664
GREAT FOOD
Daily Specials
40+ Craft Beers
To-Go Orders Welcome
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Extra Savings on eligible kitchen suites
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Ask us about additional savings and fi nancing.
PRICES VALID AUG. 22ND THRU SAT., SEPT. 2ND, 2019
Hours: Mon-Fri 9:00am-6:00pm | Sat 9am-6pm | Sun 11am-4pm
118 Gateway Blvd., Cottage Grove (Next to Bi-Mart) • 541-942-7377
541-636-3692
OPEN
10AM-11PM
EVERYDAY
85944 Hwy. 99S, Goshen, OR 97405
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