The Falls Fire northwest of Burns on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024. It has burned more than 146,000 acres, destroyed 13 homes and 15 other structures. (Northwest Interagency Coordination Center)
Gov. Tina Kotek has appealed to the Biden administration to declare a disaster in Oregon to provide funding for ranchers, businesses and community members who suffered a historic fire season this year.
The declaration would release federal funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the state, along with affected tribal and local governments and qualified nonprofits, for costs linked to recovery efforts for wildfires between July 10 and Sept. 7.
This wildfire season has been especially devastating in Oregon, scorching more than 1.9 million acres in Oregon, a new record that trampled the state’s 10-year average of 640,000 acres a season. Fires destroyed at least 42 homes and 132 other structures along with hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland used for livestock grazing. They also cut power and internet service by destroying utility poles and lines and forced medically fragile and elderly people to be mass sheltered. The fires affected transportation as well, hampering the ability of emergency personnel to respond.
“Despite the scale and persistence of the wildfires, our fire and emergency teams put their lives on the line – with little rest – to protect Oregonians and what they hold dear,” Kotek said in a statement. “Our rural communities are still in profound crisis as a result of this season, and I am resolved to secure the federal assistance needed for Oregon to recover and rebuild.”
She asked the declaration to apply to six counties – Gilliam, Grant, Jefferson, Umatilla, Wasco, and Wheeler – that were the most affected.
In July, Kotek declared a state of emergency in Oregon over the imminent threat of wildfires. And during the season, she invoked the Conflagration Act a record 17 times to mobilize firefighters and equipment to protect buildings and infrastructure. The previous record was in 2020 when then-Gov. Kate Brown invoked the act 16 times, according to the Oregon State Fire Marshal.
In April, the Biden administration declared a disaster in Oregon to help local governments and nonprofits repair or replace facilities damaged in the January storms. They brought landslides and mudslides and punishing winds to Benton, Clackamas, Coos, Hood River, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Multnomah, Sherman, Tillamook and Wasco counties along with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.
That declaration required some cost-sharing from the state, but in her current request, Kotek asked that the cost-sharing requirement be waived.
“The rural counties impacted by the wildfires have limited resources to support the standard share of the cost and the magnitude of state resources deployed across Oregon means state funding is insufficient to reimburse these communities,” she said in a release.
This year, President Joe Biden declared a disaster in 40 states, including Oregon, and in some more than once.
Kotek said it’s likely to take the administration six weeks to respond to the request.
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