Wildfires in Oregon

In recent weeks wildfires have plagued portions of the Pacific Northwest. On July 16th Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has declared a state emergency and mobilized the Oregon National Guard. This week light rain and lowering temperatures have helped to calm the ongoing fires. Despite the recent good news about the wildfires a lot of Oregonians are threatened or affected by the ongoing crisis.
Both the Federal and State forest services put a lot of great information online. Keeping up to date on wildfires can help keep you safe. No one wants to find themselves in the danger zone of an active fire. The Following websites are great places to get up to date fire information:

• Northwest Large Fire Map
• Northwest Interagency Coordination Center publishes a regularly updated map of fire incidents around the Northwest. The map plots the areas of the fires and tags the fires with detailed information about their status. The map provides geographic plotting of fire extent and links to the Inciweb entries for each fire.
• Inciweb
• The National Wildfire Coordinating group maintains this official online database of active and inactive fires across the United States. This database is updated minute by minute with detailed data on wildfires in the United States. You can display incidents by state, age, status and type. The individual reports on incidents include a summary of the situation, contact information, a map, images and links to news releases.

The Oregon department of Forestry and the United States department of Forestry also maintain their own websites devoted to wildfires in the state.

• Oregon Department of Forestry
  • This site has information on Oregon forest closures as well as information on rules and regulations relating to fire in Oregon’s forests.
• United State Department of Agriculture Forest Service: Deschutes & Ochoco National Forests
• This website has an extensive listing of alerts and information relating to lands in and around the state’s national forests. In particular the alerts and links listed on the right side of the page are very useful.

Oregon and Federal planning for forest fires started well before the fires broke out and will continue well after they are out. Key to the efforts are the laws and regulations of the state of Oregon.

• Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 477
• This is the statute that governs the fire protection of forests and vegetation in the state of Oregon. Some highlights include
• ORS 477.066 – The Duty of an owner to conduct fire abatement  
• ORS 477.510 – Acts prohibited during fire season
• Title 629 – Department of Forestry;  Division 42 – Fire Control

Oregonians have for decades been working on and thinking of ways to manage the great forests of our state. Here is preamble and summary of the 1925 act creating the state board of forestry.