THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2021 A5
OREGON | WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS
Lawmakers reluctantly make $17M down payment
BY TED SICKINGER
The Oregonian
If anything illustrated the
need for Oregon to invest more
in wildfire preparedness, it was
last year’s cluster of Labor Day
infernos that chewed through
a million acres of forestland,
destroyed thousands of homes
and structures and killed nine
people.
Despite scores of recom-
mendations that the governor’s
Council on Wildfire Response
said were urgent back in 2019,
the Oregon Legislature made
no headway on the issue last
year after two Republican
walkouts over climate change
legislation. Gov. Kate Brown’s
hope of addressing some of
those proposals in one of the
Legislature’s special sessions
didn’t happen either, taking a
backseat to more pressing pan-
demic-related funding and po-
licing reforms.
But the Legislature’s Emer-
gency Board reluctantly made
a tiny down payment on Fri-
day, appropriating $17 mil-
lion for the Office of State Fire
Marshal and the Oregon De-
partment of Forestry to invest
in wildfire prevention and pre-
paredness programs.
The spending was approved
despite concerns from legisla-
tive analysts and lawmakers,
who doubt the two agencies
can even spend the money
in the six months remaining
in the current two-year bud-
get cycle. They questioned
whether the Emergency Board
has the authority to create new
positions and programs that
are typically debated by the
Full Ways and Means Com-
mittee, and will then have to be
made permanent for the next
biennium in the upcoming leg-
islative session, at substantial
cost.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen
the word ‘problematic’ used
so often in a (Legislative Fiscal
Office) brief,” said Sen. Eliza-
beth Steiner Hayward, D-Port-
land, who ultimately voted to
approve the spending. “This
feels like really major policy.
I have substantive concerns
about the way this is structured
and the way we’re accomplish-
ing it through the Emergency
Board. As co-chair of Ways
and Means, my stomach is a bit
bound up right now.”
Spending breakdown
The spending includes $4
million for the Office of the
State Fire Marshal. In part, that
would cover 25 new positions,
which legislative analysts noted
will increase the size of the of-
fice by nearly one third. The
jobs will support moderniza-
tion of the state’s mutual aid
system for emergency response
and implement some of the
wildfire council’s recommen-
dations to help communities
better adapt and respond.
The appropriation will also
provide $2.3 million to support
grants to local fire districts for
equipment, prevention pro-
grams and training.
Lawmakers questioned
Mount Hood National Forest via The Oregonian
The Riverside Fire burns in the Mount Hood National Forest, seen from La Dee Flats near the Clackamas
River, in the fall.
whether the agency could even
make all those new hires, some
of which are high level, by the
June 30th end of the biennium.
And legislative analysts noted
that costs for the positions in
the next biennium would total
nearly $6 million, and would
compete with other priorities
in the 2021-23 budget process.
The Department of Forestry,
meanwhile, will get $13 mil-
lion. Of that, $5 million would
go for aviation contracts, in-
cluding a “next generation” air
tanker, two single-engine air-
craft and a heavy-duty helicop-
ter — assets that department
officials say will substantially
increase its capacity for early
attacks on new fires to keep
them small.
A fiscal analyst noted in
his brief that the aviation ap-
propriation is “problematic”
because it will expire on June
30, just as the fire season is
beginning. There is no assur-
ance, if it expires before it is
spent, he said, that lawmakers
will make the funds available
again.
The sharp increase in gen-
eral fund money, he also said,
“communicates a significant
policy change that is usually
contemplated during a legisla-
tive session.”
Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, said she is a big believer
in expanding the agency’s avi-
ation capacity, but that she was
voting no because of all the
other “ups and extras in this
bill.”
That includes $2.6 million
for the forestry department
to hire 29 new employees in
its fire protection program,
including a new deputy divi-
sion chief, and add between
two weeks to one month to
147 seasonal positions. It will
also provide nearly $400,000
to fire protection associa-
tions, which are independent
groups of landowners that
provide their own wildfire
protection. The estimated
costs of continuing those
new positions and programs
would be $10 million in the
next budget cycle, a 9% in-
crease from the current fire
protection budget, the legisla-
tive fiscal office reported.
Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton,
wanted to know if any money
was being allocated to update
local alert systems or for local
water trucks, both of which
were major problems in the
Labor Day fires.
Girod, whose home was de-
stroyed in the Beachie Creek
fire, added: “I want to make
sure people don’t sleep through
a fire and get killed… It’s ex-
tremely frustrating not to have
water to put on a fire.”
The answer to both ques-
tions, from both agencies, was
“no.” Not specifically.
The Department of Forestry
would get another $5 million
for its “partnership and plan-
ning” program, including eight
new positions. The bulk — $4
million — would go to support
forest restoration projects, in-
cluding thinning and the re-
moval of downed limbs and
debris from forest floors that
contribute to fire growth and
risks. Specifically, the depart-
ment wants to spend $2 mil-
lion on 13 projects on non-in-
dustrial private property, and
another $2 million on planning
for forest restoration on federal
lands.
This is a tiny start on a mas-
sive problem, but it’s contro-
versial, too. Some lawmakers
wonder why Oregon is spend-
ing its money to clean up fed-
eral forests. Once again, the
meeting materials noted that
fiscal analysts are “skeptical
of the ability of the agency to
complete, or even to substan-
tively begin to implement the
projects that are outlined in
this request before the end of
the current biennium and is
concerned that funding this
request presupposes a contin-
uation of additional ongoing
funding into the 2021-23 bien-
nium.”
Focus on prevention
Meanwhile, environmental
and firefighter groups main-
tain that thinning projects
have little impact on fire se-
verity and are really an excuse
to harvest more trees. They
believe communities need
to be better prepared to deal
with fire in an era of climate
change, and the money would
be better spent on ways to pre-
vent structures from igniting
in the first place.
Tim Ingalsbee, executive di-
rector of Firefighters United
for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology,
Meet Dr. Covalt
said the Emergency Board’s ap-
proval of more aircraft, boots
on the ground and thinning
projects are a conventional re-
sponse that is out of step with
the new realities of climate
change.
“Again and again, this big
iron is parked on the tarmac
during the periods when peo-
ple are in crisis,” he said. “You
take trees out of the forest and
put more young firefighters on
the front line.
“Climate change is creating
more red flag conditions where
it’s not possible to suppress
fires. We have people living di-
rectly in harm’s way and felling
the forest around them is not
going to protect them.”
Matt Donegan, a forestry
executive who chaired the gov-
ernor’s wildfire council, dis-
agrees. He says the need for
more forest restoration work
is real, and the Biden Admin-
istration’s climate policy may
include some major new fed-
eral investments in thinning
and hazardous fuels reduction
projects — money the state can
access if it builds the pipeline
and capacity to accomplish the
work.
He agrees that fire is a natu-
ral and healthy phenomenon
and that we need more of it
to restore forest health. The
problem, he says, is that for-
ests are so overstocked with
dead, dry debris after a cen-
tury of fire suppression that
managing prescribed burns or
natural fires to restore healthy
ecosystems is nearly impossi-
ble. Meanwhile, he said, there’s
never enough money to move
forward with the projects at the
scale needed.
“Climate change is creating
more red flag conditions
where it’s not possible to
suppress fires. We have
people living directly in
harm’s way and felling the
forest around them is not
going to protect them.”
— Tim Ingalsbee, executive
director of Firefighters United for
Safety, Ethics, and Ecology
The wildfire council’s rec-
ommendations included
spending $4 billion to treat 5.6
million acres of Oregon forests
over two decades — far be-
yond the state’s current means.
But Donegan said potential
legislative concepts for the
next legislative session could
provide dedicated sources of
funding for the projects, which
could then leverage federal
money. He called the Emer-
gency Board’s appropriation
a stopgap measure, and said
the emphasis should shift to
the regular session that begins
Jan. 19.
“The state needs to recog-
nize the magnitude of this
challenge, and we need to be
providing the resources to
meet that challenge,” he said.
“At this stage, we’re not pro-
viding the resources to get the
work done today, nor are we
building the capacity to do the
restoration of tomorrow. That’s
what this session needs to be
about: building the capacity so
we can meet the magnitude of
the challenge.”
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