BAKER CITY HERALD • THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2022 A5
THE WEST
State lawmakers
call for ‘full-stop
pausing’ of process
Oregon Department of Forestry maps
This map shows the wildfire danger ratings in the Sumpter Valley. Orange denotes high danger and red is extreme danger. Areas with diagonal
lines are in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). All of Sumpter is both within the WUI and has a high or extreme danger rating, which means
property owners could be required to take steps to reduce the fire risk on their properties, and comply with new building codes, under a new
state law.
This map shows the wildfire
danger ratings in Baker County.
Orange denotes high danger
and red is extreme danger. Ar-
eas with diagonal lines are in the
wildland-urban interface (WUI).
Yellow is moderate and green
denotes either low or no risk.
Owners of properties that are
both within the WUI and have a
high or extreme danger rating
could be required to take steps
to reduce the fire risk on their
properties, and comply with
new building codes, under a new
state law.
Wildfire
Continued from A1
That map, which the Oregon
Department of Forestry recently
released as a collaboration with
Oregon State University, also
shows the boundaries for what’s
known as the wildland-urban
interfact — WUI — areas with
homes that are within or near
forests or rangelands where
wildfires are more likely.
Senate Bill 762 requires the
risk level be based on the local
weather, climate, topography
and vegetation, the latter crite-
rion determined by aerial data.
Property owners can appeal the
classification if they believe it’s
improper.
Properties that are both
within the WUI, and that have a
wildfire risk rating of either high
or extreme (on a five-level scale
that also includes no risk, low
and moderate risks) could be
required, under Senate Bill 762,
to create the same sort of de-
fensible space that Morgan has
around his home.
Such property owners might
also have to comply with
changes in building codes.
Morgan isn’t comfortable
with the state mandating the
kinds of work he undertook on
his property.
But he’s even more troubled
by the process the Department
of Forestry has used.
In July the agency mailed let-
ters to 250,000 to 300,000 prop-
erty owners whose land has a
wildfire risk rating of high or ex-
treme, and whether, as in Mor-
gan’s case, the lot is also within
the WUI.
Morgan’s letter is dated July
21.
“I think this letter caught a lot
of us off guard, including me,”
Morgan said on Tuesday, Aug.
2. “I think the state got the cart
before the horse.”
He cites the letter itself. It
reads, in part: “You may be re-
quired to take actions to create
defensible space around your
home and adhere to changes
to building code requirements.
Both of these regulatory pro-
cesses are still in development.”
The problem, in Morgan’s
view, is that he and tens of thou-
sands of other property owners
are left to wonder what they
might be required to do, and
when.
According to the Forestry
Department, the Oregon State
Fire Marshal is working on the
defensible space requirements.
The agency is slated to adopt
those in December 2022, and
take effect in 2023.
The state Building Codes
Division is responsible for the
building code requirements
mentioned in the letter to prop-
erty owners.
The agency is scheduled to
adopt codes Oct. 1, 2022, and
those will take effect April 1,
2023.
Sumpter the most heavily
affected part of Baker
County
On the Forestry Depart-
ment’s new map — www.
oregon.gov/odf/fire/pages/
wildfire-risk.aspx — Sumpter
stands out among Baker
County communities.
The entire community,
which has about 212 residents
and 500 homes, is both within
the WUI and has a wildfire
risk rating of either high or ex-
treme. Sumper is, in effect, a
town within a second-growth
ponderosa pine forest.
Kurt Clarke, chief of the vol-
unteer Sumpter Fire Depart-
ment, said as far as he can tell,
every Sumpter property owner
got a version of the letter that
Morgan received.
Clarke said he’s talked with
a few residents who wonder
whether, or how, the pending
regulations under Senate 762
will affect them.
Others, he said, worry that
their homeowner insurance
policies could be canceled be-
cause, based on the map, their
homes are in a high or extreme
fire risk area. (Most of the city’s
tax lots are rated as high risk,
with some scattered lots in the
extreme category.)
Like Morgan, Clarke pro-
motes defensible space tac-
tics such as pruning trees and
clearing the ground of needles
and limbs.
He said the fire department
and city officials encourage
residents to take such precau-
tions. Clarke believes Sumpter
has made progress over the
years.
The city allows residents
to bring yard debris to a city
property where it can be safely
burned, Clarke said.
“My citizens, I’ve got to say,
are very fire savvy,” he said.
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KLAMATH RIVER,
Calif. — Two more bod-
ies were found within
the burn zone of a huge
Northern California wild-
fire, raising the death toll
to four in the state’s largest
blaze of the year, authori-
ties said Tuesday, Aug. 2.
Search teams discovered
the additional bodies Mon-
day, Aug. 1 at separate res-
idences along State Route
96, one of the only roads
in and out of the remote
region near the state line
with Oregon, the Siskiyou
County Sheriff’s Office
said in a statement.
“This brings the con-
firmed fatality number to
four,” the sheriff’s state-
ment said. “At this time
there are no unaccounted
for persons.”
Other details were not
immediately disclosed.
Sheriff’s officials said
two bodies were also found
Sunday, July 31 inside
a charred vehicle in the
driveway of a home near
the tiny unincorporated
community of Klamath
River, which was largely
destroyed in the McKin-
ney Fire.
The fire jumped the
Klamath River over
the weekend and raged
through the tiny commu-
nity of about 200, destroy-
ing many of the homes
along with the post office,
community hall and other
scattered businesses.
“When that fire came
over that ridgeline, it had
100-foot flames for about
5 miles and the wind was
blowing. It was coming
down like a solid blow-
torch. There was noth-
ing to stop it,” said Roger
Derry, 80, whose home
was among a handful that
survived.
“It’s very sad. It’s very
disheartening,” said his
son, whose name is spelled
Rodger Derry. “Some
of our oldest homes,
100-year-old homes, are
gone. It’s a small commu-
nity.
Good people, good
folks, for the most part, live
here and in time will re-
build. But it’s going to take
some time now.”
More than 100 homes,
sheds and other buildings
have burned in the McK-
inney Fire since it erupted
last Friday, July 29. The
blaze remained out of con-
trol, authorities said.
Thunderstorms dumped
some much-needed rain on
Monday and into Tuesday
even as temperatures hit
the 90s Fahrenheit and the
brush, fields and forest re-
mained generally bone-dry.
But the storms also
meant a threat of lightning
strikes that already sparked
several small blazes.
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Others concerned about
potential effects
Morgan’s concerns about
Senate Bill 762 are far from rare.
The Forestry Department
received about twice as many
public comments opposed to
the wildfire risk mapping than
in favor, mainly from people
who believe the WUI areas are
too large, said Tim Holschbach,
the agency’s fire prevention and
policy manager.
Mike Shaw, chief of the For-
estry Department’s fire protec-
tion division, said the agency
will be in a “fish bowl” of scru-
BY HAVEN DALEY AND
CHRISTOPHER WEBER
Associated Press
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Threat leads to
cancellation of public
meeting
The Forestry Department
scheduled a series of five com-
munity meetings to explain
the purpose behind the new
map and risk ratings.
The first meeting, set for July
26 in Grants Pass, was canceled
after the Forestry Department
received a phone message
“threatening violence,” said
Derek Gasperini, the agency’s
public affairs officer.
The only meeting in East-
ern Oregon took place Tues-
day evening, Aug. 2, at East-
ern Oregon University in La
Grande.
Mateusz Perkowski of the
Capital Press contributed to
this story.
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Elsewhere in Baker County
Other than Sumpter, the big-
gest area in Baker County with
properties that are within the
WUI and have a fire rating risk
of high or extreme is on the
west side of Baker Valley.
This includes neighborhoods
along and near Pine, Mill, Mar-
ble, Salmon and Goodrich
creeks, and in parts of Washing-
ton Gulch.
In addition, there are mul-
tiple properties along the base
of the sagebrush foothill just
southwest of Baker City that
meet both criteria.
Other places with scattered
parcels that could be affected by
Senate Bill 762 include:
• Unity
• Old Auburn Lane
• Stices Gulch near Dooley
Mountain Highway
• Rock Creek and Bulger Flat
west of Haines
• Along Highway 7 near
Denny Creek
• Western and eastern fringes
of Pine Valley
• East Eagle Creek
• Cornucopia
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tiny due to Senate Bill 762 and
its potential effects.
“The agency’s work is not
done. The work will continue
through this year. We know
we’re not going to be perfect,”
Shaw said. “There will be ad-
justments in the future. This is a
great first step.”
The Oregon Farm Bureau
has been one of the more vo-
cal groups concerned about the
effects of the wildfire risk map
and the WUI boundaries.
The Farm Bureau criticized
Senate Bill 762 for its” top-
down” approach to reducing the
wildfire risk in rural areas.
The number of properties
both within the WUI and with a
wildfire risk rating of high or ex-
treme is smaller than the Farm
Bureau anticipated, however.
According to the Forestry
Department, about 120,276
tax lots — 8% of the state’s total
— meet both of those criteria,
but about 80,000 of those have
a home or other structure that
might be subject to the defensi-
ble space or building code reg-
ulations.
Barns and other outbuildings
are excempt from the require-
ments.
However, Lauren Smith, the
Farm Bureau’s director of gov-
ernment and national affairs,
said she’s concerned that the
state might end that exemption
in the future.
“We’re always going to be
uncomfortable because we will
have properties that fall into that
high and extreme risk WUI,”
Smith said.
Still and all, Clarke said
he believes it can be hard for
some property owners to truly
understood how devastating a
wildfire can be if they haven’t
personally experienced a ca-
tastrophe such as what befell
Paradise, California, in 2018,
or another Northern Califor-
nia town, Greenville, in 2021.
The Camp fire destroyed
19,000 buildings and killed 85
people in Paradise. The Dixie
fire burned most of the homes
and other buildings in Green-
ville, although there were no
deaths.
“Some people don’t think it’s
going to happen,” Clarke said.
Baker County’s two state
legislators are calling on the
Oregon
Depart-
ment of
Forestry
to with-
draw a
recently
released
Owens
map
show-
ing wild-
fire risk
levels on
each of
the 1.8
million
tax lots
Findley
in the
state.
Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale,
and Rep. Mark Owens,
R-Crane, wrote in a joint
statement that the map “has
no credibility.”
“It serves as an ill-in-
formed, unreviewed, and
dangerous and divisive
product pitting homeown-
ers against the state of Ore-
gon,” the lawmakers wrote
in the Aug. 3 statement.
“Pulling back the maps and
pausing the process has had
executive level and biparti-
san legislative level support.
The Oregon Department
of Forestry had a chance to
restart the process and bla-
tantly chose not to do so.
“We need to stop this
process and recall the map,
and allow landowners,
county planners, and local
fire agencies to review each
site and develop an accu-
rate map reflecting efforts
by homeowners to mitigate
the risk through fuel reduc-
tion and building materials
to collate a final product.
We realize this could add
significant amount of time
to the effort, but we believe
it is imperative we do so.
Anything less than full-stop
pausing, pulling back and
reassessing is pure arro-
gance by the State of Or-
egon.”
Findley and Owens called
the risk map “a complete
and total failure,” compiled
“without any local review.”
The legislators are con-
cerned that the map, which
classifies thousands of tax
lots as having a high or ex-
treme wildfire risk, will result
in higher homeowner insur-
ance rates or even canceled
policies.
“Collectively, we repre-
sent 43 percent of the state
geographically including
some of the most wildfire
prone forests and commu-
nities, greatest number of
acres of farm and, least af-
fordable housing, and larg-
est populations of seniors
and families at or below av-
erage income levels,” Findley
and Owens wrote. “Now,
not only do our constituents
need to worry about wild-
fires for their safety and live-
lihoods, but they also have
to worry about going bank-
rupt due to a mismanaged
mapping process.”
Death toll
rises to 4 in
massive blaze
in Northern
California
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