Gov. Tina Kotek, State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple, center, and Oregon Department of Forestry Deputy Director Kyle Williams speak at a wildfire briefing Wednesday in Salem.
Despite a considerable amount of winter moisture and strong snow pack at higher elevations, Oregon’s increasingly hotter, drier summers will quickly dry out vegetation and create dangerous conditions, Gov. Tina Kotek said at a news conference Wednesday.
“Fire season is here,” she said. “By July and August we will experience above average severity that will culminate in September and October as we reach peak fire danger.”
The conference was held at the Oregon Department of Forestry’s fire cache in Salem, where the agency keeps millions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies for its logistics and tactical teams and for firefighters around the state. Kotek also signed a proclamation declaring May “Wildfire Awareness Month.”
“Every Oregonian has a role in preventing wildfires,” she said. “Drown the campfire, stir the ashes and drown it again until it’s cool to the touch. Every Oregonian needs to know the fire danger level where they live. And please follow the rules and the notices when you get them.”
Kotek and the forestry department’s deputy director, Kyle Williams, said that after last year’s record-breaking fires — nearly 2,000 of them that burned nearly 2 million acres — they’ve learned to declare emergencies early so agencies can collaborate and coordinate, to boost aerial surveying for wildfires to get to them before they grow and to establish more spots around the state where helicopters, planes and crews can land and be deployed quickly.
Oregon’s Department of Forestry is hoping to fill 400 seasonal firefighting jobs to compliment about 300 permanent staff, Williams said. Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said her agency will bring on 1,500 structural firefighters for the season.
“Other than that, we’re going to rely on our partners again,” Williams said.
Those partners include the more than 11,000 firefighters from more than 300 fire departments around the state who make up the Oregon Fire Mutual Aid System, firefighting companies that have hand crews and equipment the state can contract and federal wildland firefighters.
Kotek said it was essential that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management also scale up a robust wildfire fighting force for federal lands — which make up about half the state — this summer.
Williams said partners at those federal agencies are “anticipating being able to hire all of those folks. What might not show up on the fire line is still yet to be determined, but we’re going to be as prepared as possible and then engage other states, compact states and provinces.”
Oregon has a compact with Northwest states and Canada to share firefighters and firefighting resources as needed.
Kotek said that strain between the Canadian and U.S. governments over tariffs and President Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s sovereignty are so far not dampening the relationship between northwest states and provinces over firefighting.
“I haven’t heard anything different. It’s business as usual. We’re all going to support each other, and hopefully we don’t have any kind of restrictions at the border,” Kotek said.
She is also asking the state Legislature to come up with a $150 million fund that can be tapped to cover extraordinary expenses or to front payments to contractors that will then be reimbursed by the federal government.
Kotek had to call a special session of the Legislature in December to appropriate more than $200 million to cover the state’s outstanding fire costs. The state spent more than $350 million fighting wildfires in 2024. While half is expected to be reimbursed by federal agencies, state agencies have to pay contractors for their work upfront while they wait, sometimes for a year or more, for federal reimbursement.
Kotek said she has no reason to believe federal agencies will renege on obligations to reimburse the state and to help in a wildfire emergency in Oregon, especially on federal land.
“The federal government needs to provide the resources to make sure when it’s (fire) on federal land, they are ready,” she said. “Because when we’re on state land, we are ready.”
- Oregon Capital Chronicle is a nonprofit Salem-based news service that focuses its reporting on Oregon state government, politics and policy.
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