Lane County: 66,000 acres burned in the 2024 fire season

With a look at the 2024 fire season as of Oct. 22, Lane County Emergency Manager Tiffany Brown:

Tiffany Brown (Lane County emergency manager): I’m pleased to be before you this morning to talk about a relatively uneventful fire season, albeit not yet over, but we think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[00:00:18] I put together a one-page summary for you that I won’t go over line by line, but I wanted to just sort of go over some highlights. I’ll be coming back to you with an update in the next month or two when the rainy season has put the fires out, and come up with something more comprehensive.

[00:00:35] I was aware as I was putting this together, we had a couple of fires that happened before it all started and not everything is even listed here. I’ve got about 17 fires, and I can think of three more that I wasn’t able to find data on last week. Siuslaw, if you remember, a couple weeks before it started, and something that happened in Marcola. So, those are just a couple of examples. I’ll see you later.

[00:00:58] But, for now, I did some rough math. We’ve burned over 66,000 acres this season, and it was an unprecedented season in that we didn’t, however, have a lot of the downstream needs that are often the reason that emergency management is brought to the table.

[00:01:18] Here’s a brief timeline. You’ll remember that on July 17, there was a large lightning storm across the state, 1,100 lightning strikes that resulted in the first nine fires in Lane County.

[00:01:30] The next day, we have listed here the Horse Heaven Fire, which was part of the Homestead Complex, which was primarily in Douglas County. This was just one fire in that complex that was with us. And then, as recently as the beginning of September, we had two days in a row where several small fires were started.

[00:01:49] We all kept busy during the fire season leaning into it. The Sheriff’s Office, Lane County Animal Services set up for the Oakridge Fire. It wasn’t needed. That’s a real heavy lift. I want to do a shout-out for having gotten that done, and then walked right over to the edge and peeked at evacuation possibilities, but didn’t luckily have to see any of that.

[00:02:11] Looking ahead, we’ll be updating the Community Wildfire Protection Plan. It was last updated two weeks before the Holiday Farm Fire. So lots of lessons learned, lots of partners at the table, and we’re really looking forward to that. I think we’ll be wrapping that up next May.

[00:02:29] And then I would just mention a few other things that are ongoing in the county: Prescribed burns; several entities that have defensible space projects that have been funded through grants; and really just breathing a sigh of relief, taking what lessons we did learn and looking forward, to what we can do better next season.

[00:02:47] We really, as the new emergency manager, this was a great trial run for me. I met with the Sheriff’s Office early on and they sort of explained how we all gather and communicate and that worked. Our alert system; we used it for evacuation notices. We saw an increase in subscribers. That’s always a good thing to happen, especially before winter storm season.

[00:03:11] And, again, just pleased to be here. Pleased to see all hands on deck and a system that works well. We can always look for improvements, but it was a pleasure working through my first fire season this year.

[00:03:23] John Q: Lane County sees 66,000 acres burn, and a near-evacuation of Oakridge, as the 2024 fire season transitions into winter storm season.

Image credit KEPW 97.3 Whole Community News: Wildfires in Lane County as of July 30, 2024, as Emergency Manager Tiffany Brown offers a recap of the 2024 wildfire season for county commissioners Oct. 22, 2024.