In response to longer and more severe wildfire seasons, a growing population living in the wildlandurban interface and the extensive impacts of the 2020 Labor Day fires, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 762 in 2021, laying the groundwork for statewide wildfire community adaptation efforts in a rapidly changing wildfire environment. As part of this broader statewide effort, SB 762 directed Oregon State University, in collaboration with Oregon Department of Forestry, to create a map identifying where wildfires pose the most hazard to structures and other human developments. OSU was also directed to map the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, to be used in tandem with the wildfire hazard map to guide new defensible space and fire hardening building code standards in high-risk areas, bolstering community protection across Oregon. Additionally, SB 762 called upon OSU to map social vulnerability to help decision makers further allocate limited resources to those most in need. The College of Forestry led an interdisciplinary team from across OSU. Their diverse expertise included wildfire risk science, rural economic development and social vulnerability, community combustion and impacts and communications and outreach. This team worked directly with a 26-member rulemaking advisory committee, county commissioners and planners, and engaged the public to co-produce maps that used the best available science, grounded in local knowledge of landscapes and communities. “The hazard map was designed to give the state agencies implementing those codes a sciencebased foundation for deciding where to prioritize implementation,” said Andy McEvoy, a College of Forestry wildfire risk scientist involved in the maps’ development. “The state of Oregon wants to invest resources, people power, dollars, education and outeach into the communities where they can most positively affect risk reduction.” Informed by science and practice When the initial maps were released in the summer of 2022 according to the legislatively mandated timeline, they sparked many questions and concerns from people across Oregon. The pushback was strong enough that ODF rescinded the first maps less than two months after they were released. Since then, the OSU science team working on the maps have been reviewing public feedback, coordinating with local professionals and planners, and incorporating changes into draft maps that address the primary concerns expressed about the first maps. Two significant changes reflect how fuels are less likely to burn on agricultural lands that are either irrigated or managed as hay and pasture. OSU researchers relied on input from fire modeling specialists, fire and fuel professionals and ranchers to develop the specific changes. Public feedback in 2022 also caused the legislature to pass Senate Bill 80 during the 2023 session. SB 80 clarified that the map reflects environmental hazard rather than risk, an important distinction MAPPING WILDFIRE Using science to inform policy for a wildfire adapted Oregon
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