U.S. senator provided updates on proposed National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024, discussed unseasonably hot, dry weather

By Nick Morgan, Rogue Valley Times

Highlighting unseasonably hot, dry temperatures for the month of July, local fire officials and meteorologists told U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden that the Rogue Valley is in for a “long fire season.”

During a meeting Wednesday in a conference room at Rogue X in Medford, the Oregon Democrat, in turn, pledged to ensure those officials have the resources they need. He provided updates on the proposed National Prescribed Fire Act legislation he plans to pursue this fall, but otherwise insisted that his meeting with fire officials was a “politics-free zone” as he sought input on their needs.

“These wonderful people do a great service for us,” Wyden said. “It’s my job to give them the tools.” 

Dave Larson, director of the Oregon Department of Forestry Southwest Oregon District, told Wyden that, after close to two weeks of triple-digit temperatures, fire season “flipped like a switch” and set fuels — trees, brush and shrubbery — to “record-setting levels that we have not seen before at this time of year.”

“This year we get two Augusts, and it just happened to start in July,” Larson said.

Larson said that, owing to the multiple fires across Southern Oregon — including two significant human-caused fires in the Rogue Valley and the large fires burning east of the Cascade Range — ODF and partner federal agencies are already at the National Interagency Fire Center Preparedness Level 4 in Southern Oregon.

The highest level on the scale determining how national firefighting resources are committed is Level 5.

“So we are rapidly getting to that level way earlier,” Larson said.

Larson touched on his agency’s coordination with federal partners on the wave of lightning strikes that passed through the Rogue Valley earlier this week.

“The fields are very receptive for those starts,” Larson said. “We’ve been coordinating and talking across the phone, making sure that we’re sharing resources across the line, because fire doesn’t know any boundary — and neither do we.” 

Larson touted successes, such as ODF’s swift progress on the Salt Creek Fire, which erupted July 7 roughly 10 miles east of Eagle Point. He said they were able to get the fire fully lined within four days by “working both day and night” and through “a heavy commitment of resources.”

Resources and their availability are going to be key in shaping this year’s fire season, he told Wyden. 

“Be prepared for a long fire season,” Larson said. “The next 60 days, in my opinion, is going to define what fire season 2024 is going to look like.”

Chris Glode, Medford fire management officer for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, said his agency has been at “a pretty high operational tempo for two months now.”

His agency is bracing for more lighting strikes this season, he said, but hoping to see fewer human-caused starts as the fire danger increases and restrictions tighten.

Neither Glode nor Larson identified specific fires with human causes, but it has previously been reported that the Upper Applegate Fire was caused on June 21 by someone mowing dry grass.

“As we see folks move into the area that come from areas where fires are not so prevalent, things they’re used to doing can have some pretty dire consequences,” Larson said.

Asked about efforts to limit human causes, Larson said as one example that ODF is taking steps to have literature about fire restrictions available at places such as The Chamber of Medford & Jackson County and locations where people pick up building permits.

ODF Southwest District spokeswoman Natalie Weber said that people often want to know what caused a specific fire, and the answer is typically “the activities that all of these agencies regulate.”

“They’re regulated because those are the causes you see the most often,” Weber said.

An undeniable factor in this year’s fire season is the weather. Tom Wright, observation leader with the National Weather Service office in Medford, said that less than a month ago “everything seemed fine” weather- and climate-wise. Reservoirs were doing well, and snowpack was OK during the spring.

“And then all of a sudden, at the end of June or early July, we sort of fell off a cliff in terms of weather getting hotter and fuels getting more receptive,” Wright said.

He described a “monumental heatwave” that set records six days in a row starting July 4. It culminated with a peak of 112 degrees on July 6. He described normal temperatures for this time of year as being in the low 90s.

“So we’re running a good 15 to 20 degrees above normal for quite a while,” Wright said.

Wyden said that with the drought challenge, he’s trying to build a coalition of lawmakers seeking to see wildfires as a natural disaster to be expected every year akin to hurricanes in the East and tornadoes in the South. And he said that, based on his conversations with fire officials, he sees “some big opportunities.” 

“For example, several of these dedicated public servants talk to me about the greater use of helicopters in the future,” Wyden said. “And I don’t think people back East have heard much about it — but they’re gonna hear it from me.”

Wyden pledged efforts to boost firefighter pay, champion unmanned aerial systems or specialized drones in firefighting and renew a push toward his proposed National Prescribed Fire Act legislation later this fall.

As currently written, the National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024 would authorize a combined $300 million for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior to plan, prepare and conduct prescribed burns on federal, state and private lands during cooler, wetter months.

Wyden said his priority in pushing his prescribed fire legislation is to “convince people how different this is.”

“We’ve got to get out in front of these dead and dying materials,” the senator said. “They are a magnet for fire.”

Reach reporter Nick Morgan at [email protected] or 458-488-2036. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.