Editorial: Wildfire council aims high with its recommendations

02 October 2019

Published by https://www.gazettetimes.com

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USA – The Governor’s Council on Wildfire Response offered a progress report to the governor last week, and there was an eye-popping number attached to it: The chairman of the council, Matt Donegan, estimated that the group’s proposals to improve the state’s firefighting preparation and response could require up to $4 billion.

That’s a lot of money. But there’s a lot of work to be done.

Gov. Kate Brown assembled the council earlier this year. Its members have spent nine months working on the recommendations, which were unveiled during what likely will be its final meeting.

Brown’s charge to the council was to address the changing needs of Oregon communities in relation to wildfire. That’s a big assignment, although it probably helped the council’s work that this year’s fire season in Oregon was the shortest in two decades; the council wasn’t distracted by the sort of huge wildfires that have ripped through the state during recent summers. (To be on the safe side, though, it’s worth noting that the possibility of big blazes remains in the cards; major wildfires have burned in the West as late as November.)

But this year’s milder fire season almost certainly is an outlier, especially when you consider the continuing impact of climate change and the condition of our forestlands. (It’s telling that the number of fires this season on lands protected by the Oregon Department of Forestry, 923, was about average, even though the fire season was about three weeks shorter than usual.)

So the work of the council is vital, and its recommendations demonstrated a gratifyingly high level of ambition.

In general, as a story by the Oregon Capital Bureau noted, the recommendations fell into three broad categories: creating wildfire-adapted communities; mitigating and developing resilient landscapes to prepare for fire; and supporting effective wildfire response.