Oregon’s Growing into a Fire Hazard

ESCONDIDO, Calif. — Chris Gilbert strains through binoculars at a smoke-choked hillside of houses to see whether his home of more than 20 years is still there.

Two days before, it was — he’d grabbed paintings off the walls and fled with hundreds of thousands of others in Southern California’s firestorm. But in this instant he knows nothing can save all the houses dotting the land, not with so many more homes than firefighters.

"They build all these new houses, and then they can’t take care of all the people they bring in," he says. "Suddenly, everybody’s future depends on which way the wind blows."

Oregon’s future may look this way more than many Oregonians realize. Southern California has far more people and development, but Oregon has a landscape also shaped by unpredictable wildfires and more and more residents who love living on the edges of — or right inside — forested areas.

Parts of Oregon at greatest risk of fire — the outskirts of Bend, Ashland and Hood River, for instance — are among its fastest growing. And much of the growth, like that in California and the rest of the West, is in the wildland-urban "interface" most prone to destructive blazes.

About 60 percent of all homes built in the 1990s went up right in that danger zone, according to data compiled by the U. S. Forest Service. Such explosive growth held true in San Diego and in Oregon, with at least a quarter-million homes in the interface.

"The more development in these interface areas, the more money we’re going to spend protecting them, and the more homes we’re going to lose," says James McIver, an Oregon State University forest resources professor. "Thank goodness we haven’t had the extreme conditions they’ve had (in California), otherwise we might not have a Sunriver; we might not have parts of Sisters and Bend."

Upping the ante: Decades of aggressive firefighting left forests to accumulate tinder, which accelerates fires, and a warmer climate pairs more rain and plant growth with longer summers that dry everything out.

Global warming is likely to make catastrophic wildfires much more routine, says Ronald Neilson, a U.S. Forest Service bioclimatologist in Corvallis. Many of the highest-risk forests also will suffer the most from bugs and disease, state officials project, making them even more vulnerable to fire.

Oregon faces fire risk not only on the dry east side of the state, but also on the damp and densely populated west side. Conditions only occasionally favor fires on the west side, but when they do, blazes can rampage, as the series of catastrophic fires known as the Tillamook Burn proved in the 1930s and 1940s, when more than 300,000 acres went up in smoke.

"That’s probably the hardest message to get across," says Ann Walker, who helps coordinate community fire prevention efforts for the Oregon Department of Forestry. "Historically, the largest Oregon fires have been in the Coast Range and on the west side. It could very easily dry out, and when it does, it’s just as susceptible to fire."

Oregon doesn’t have Southern California’s Santa Anas, extraordinarily high and dry winds that blow with clocklike regularity in the fall. And the state’s worst fires have been far lighter on structures.

But as development proceeds, foresters say Oregon grows more susceptible to a catastrophic dose of bad luck: Several fires at once, in the middle of a drought, with winds blowing and homes in almost every direction.

A Forest Service study released last week predicted that 10 percent of the rural acres within 10 miles of the Deschutes National Forest near Bend will see substantial increases in housing development by 2030. For the Mount Hood National Forest, it’s 13 percent. From 2000 to 2030, the Census Bureau predicts, Oregon will add 1.4 million people.

"We don’t have a firetruck for every house, and that’s one of the most difficult things for people to accept," says the Forestry Department’s Walker. "Whether you have multiple fires or a large fire with multiple fronts, or places with difficult access, resources can be stretched very thin."

Southern California often trades weather with the Pacific Northwest — a wet winter in California can mean a dry one in the Northwest. But recent years in Southern California have been remarkably dry even for a land of perpetual sun. Brittle palm trees crackle in the wind; golf courses turn brown.

California has learned from killer wildfires of the past. Some subdivisions and homes surrounded by fire-resistant landscaping survived last week’s blazes. But it’s a fine line.

Gilbert watched bulldozers scrape away natural vegetation nearby to make way for new homes. He was reluctant to clear the rest around his own home.

Then the recorded calls began coming in the middle of the night: Evacuate. One of the largest displacements of people since the Civil War was under way.

Gilbert would discover, when the smoke finally cleared, that he was lucky. Fire had stopped within feet of his house.

But the blazes didn’t threaten only homes. They also seared the infrastructure that holds the region together. Freeways closed as flames overran traffic lanes. Roasted power lines cut off power to pumps that fill firefighting airtankers with water.

Evacuation shelters were themselves evacuated.

Carlos and Martha Marin could see the fire through their kitchen window when they evacuated. The wind sounded like a hurricane. They’d had close calls with fires before, but this one charged toward their backyard.

"It’s almost like earthquakes," Carlos says, watching smoke rise from the blackened hillside below his home. Other homes near his are gone. "You know there’s a risk. The human way of adjusting to life is sometimes ignoring the possibility."

Oregon hasn’t ignored wildfires: The state was one of the first to officially push extra responsibility onto people living in the dangerous intersection of communities and wildlands. State strategy makes use of research showing it’s not the furious front of a fire that destroys many homes, but the stealthy embers it leaves behind or blows ahead.

"What we’re finding is people learn from history," says Tom Andrade of the Oregon Department of Forestry. "They’re seeing what’s going on with fires in Oregon and California and other places, and they want an alternative." Wildfires burned 52 homes in Deschutes County in the 1990s, he said, but only two since 2000.

Katie Lighthall coordinates Project Wildfire in Deschutes County, talking to residents about measures such as fire-resistant landscaping and cutting back trees, cheatgrass and bitterbrush close to their homes. The county has made big strides in recent years, she says, and new developments are much more fire-wise.

But 80 percent of the county’s residents weren’t around when the Awbrey Hall fire struck Bend’s western fringe in 1990, burning 22 homes. And the new folks keep rolling in.

"As soon as I think we’ve got a fairly aware society here," Lighthall said, "a new class comes in."

Taking simple measures around homes can make a huge difference, firefighters say. But they’re quick to add that some fires burn too hot and too fast to guarantee safety, particularly from modestly staffed rural fire departments. Big pockets of Oregon are underserved by firefighters, the Forestry Department says.

Paul Dewey, an attorney with Central Oregon Landwatch, is fighting two proposed resorts in the forests of Jefferson County. Some Bend builders want the city’s urban growth boundary expansion to include an area burned in the Awbrey Hall fire, he says.

"The Southern California experience is once fires get going, there’s no stopping them," Dewey said. "Thinning trees and clearing brush might help, but it totally depends on the winds. We’re giving people a false sense of safety. And it’s not fair to the firefighters."

Ideally, firefighters flank wildfires and pinch them off even as the head of the fire marches forward. With homes threatened, as in San Diego and at the Black Butte Ranch near Sisters last month, firefighters often have to confront fires head on, a much more dangerous and costly proposition. Next year, firefighting is expected to burn nearly half the U.S. Forest Service’s budget, up from 13 percent in 1991.

Officials with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management — which own more than half of Oregon’s land — say they’ve increased fire prevention efforts since 2000, treating roughly 300,000 Oregon acres a year.

But top federal fire officials warned last year that forest thinning efforts are not keeping pace with the buildup of tinder. In 2007, roughly 800,000 acres burned in Oregon and Washington, the second-highest total since 1985.

And the people paid to think about wildfires are worried. Hood River County’s wildfire protection plan, finished earlier this year, says construction of homes "shows little regard to fuels, weather and topography" — the major contributors to wildfire. It warns that residents on roads with one way in and out "may be beyond help in a fast-moving fire."

Walker recently visited a new Clackamas County subdivision with 156 homes and only one way in and out. "You’re not going to get all those people out of there when you’re trying to get fire resources in there. It’s something people aren’t thinking about."

Helicopter pilots flying over the Southern California wildfires this month have watched through the years as homes throughout the West march deeper and deeper into the fire zone.

"This all burned historically, and now you’ve got homes in there," said Wayne Lannin, a longtime pilot with Helicopter Transport Services Inc. of Corvallis, who has dropped water and retardant on blazes across the nation. "If it had been 20 years ago, it would still be bad. But it wouldn’t be this bad because there wouldn’t be all the houses in there."

By Michael Milstein and Scott Learn

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