Fire danger notification ‘doomed from the beginning’
Public outcry over wildfire law implementation prompts legislators, Oregon Dept. of Forestry to seek solutions
Extreme public outcry regarding recently announced wildfire protection regulations and potential fines affecting home owners has prompted district legislators and Oregon Dept. of Forestry (ODF) officials to discuss possible solutions.
Whether implementation of the regulations is in abeyance until at least later this year is unclear, but revisions appear in the offing.
Early in July approximately 19,000 Josephine County residents were notified that their properties were classified as high risk for wildfire. A July 18 public hearing at the county fairgrounds in Grants Pass was canceled due to an overflow crowd, but not before citizens could vehemently express their unhappiness about the regulations.
ODF Fire Prevention Specialist Brian Ballou acknowledges that mistakes were made in the public notification process. The notices to property owners were sent a week later than had been planned originally, he said, because the information was originally printed on postcards. The U.S. Postal Service wouldn't send the postcards because the paper used for them was slightly too thin to meet postal regulations, Ballou said.
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“That mailing was doomed from the beginning,” Ballou said. “People who were getting notices in the mail had two or three days to finish their written testimony. Had they gotten it a week earlier as we had planned, I don’t think it would have been such a hot-button item.”
Tom Atzet is a member of the Josephine County Forest Land-Urban Interface Classification Committee. That body was responsible for determining which properties in the county would be considered “extreme” fire danger, and has held public meetings for more than a year.
Even though those monthly meetings were advertised and open to the public, they were sparsely attended, Atzet said.
Upon receiving the classification notices last month, residents were stunned to learn that they could be liable for up to $100,000 in fines for fire suppression if a fire originates on their property.
The original legislation that prompted the regulations was Senate Bill 360, the Oregon Forestland-Urban Interface Fire Protection Act of 1997, which passed through the Oregon Senate on a 23-1 vote and the state House of Representatives on a 52-0. It allows the state to assess suppression costs up to $100,000 for fires originating on properties classified as high-risk.
A 1990 wildfire outside of Bend had resulted in the loss of 22 homes; another blaze hit that area six years later, and there was a similar conflagration in Medford. Ballou said that those fires were fresh in the minds of legislators when they passed SB 360.
“It was primarily on the strength of those three fires that the Legislature took the recommendation from ODF and state fire marshal to go ahead and make this a law,” he said.
Ballou said that the $100,000 figure had been recommended to legislators by the insurance industry. The number represented the average amount of home owner's insurance carried by property owners at the time.
“That way, the Legislature was comfortable with that,” said Ballou. “If people had that liability coverage with the average home owner policy, it would not really come out of the home owner's pocket. It’s something that's handled in normal coverage.
“It was never anybody's intention to put the average property owner in the likely situation of not being able to pay for the cost of the recovery bill and losing their home.”
Ballou said that the potential $100,000 assessments have not only upset home owners, but also have caused a more trying situation for ODF officials.
“That made it a bit difficult to get some people to get beyond that and just focus on really trying to accomplish the core task, which is working toward making their homes less at risk from fire damage,” Ballou said.
Oregon Rep. Ron Maurer (R-Grants Pass) was scheduled to meet with Ballou on Monday, July 30. Maurer, who represents most of Josephine County, said that the legislative intent of SB 360 was quite different than what the law actually produced.
“The implementation of the law isn't necessarily a direct correlation with the true intent,” Maurer said. “I’m not quite sure everybody did their homework. It’s unfortunate that this letter was sent out to 19,000 people without having a full-fledged plan in place.
Ballou also met last week with Oregon Sen. Jason Atkinson (R-Central Point). Atkinson characterized the 1997 legislation as “a solution searching for a problem.”
“I’m failing to see what they’re trying to fix by putting this liability back on the property owners,” Atkinson said. “If anything, Southern Oregon property owners have proven themselves to be not only good partners, but wonderful stewards of the land. When we’ve passed laws regarding fire protection, fire cleanup, brush removal or slash removal, property owners were the first to step up to the plate and help the fire load be reduced.”
Atkinson said that it is unfair for the state to punish citizens while the federal government owns most of the land in Josephine County and fails to properly manage it.
“You can’t say that if fire breaks out on government land and it goes to a private piece of property that the owner is liable,” Atkinson said. “People have every reason to be outraged.”
Atzet said that he learned much from the July 18 meeting, which turned into a debacle, and that public input will be solicited and considered before any further action is taken.
“What we saw was the way democracy should work,” Atzet said. “Overall, I feel good about it. What happened was a lot of people with a lot of concerns came to voice their concerns. We have pages of input that people had given us.”
Atzet said that he and Josephine County Forest Land-Urban Interface Classification Committee chairman Tom Link are already in the process of going through the feedback given them by residents. Once they have finished, Atzet said, they will meet again with ODF officials, and another work meeting will be scheduled.
“Of course, it will be open to the public, as they all were,” Atzet said.
Ballou said that ODF will send a letter to the same home owners who received the initial notice, with answers to frequently asked questions. Meetings will be scheduled throughout the county in the fall, as ODF officials will be busy with fire season until then.
Another public hearing will be scheduled after the town hall meetings, Ballou said.
“I think we’ll be able to take a calmer, more reasoned approach to it once fire season is over,” Ballou said. “If folks can bear with us until then, we'll be able to answer their questions to the best of our abilities.”
