Fire Adapted Oregon

About Fire Adapted Oregon

The OSFM's Fire Adapted Oregon initiative aims to improve community resiliency to wildfire in Oregon. The Community Wildfire Risk Reduction team provides local coordination, funding, education, and training to support the initiative. Progress toward a more fire-adapted Oregon will only be possible through a collaborative push to create strategies, which require substantial cooperation with many partners. Fire Adapted Oregon is grounded in statewide data, science, and defensible space practices.

What is a fire-adapted community?

A fire-adapted community is one where those who live there are informed and prepared, collaboratively planning and taking action to coexist with wildland fire safely. These communities are knowledgeable and engage and take proactive steps in the built and natural environment to safely accept fire as part of the surrounding landscape. A fire-adapted community is not an end state or a checklist; rather, it is a dynamic state of being in which community members and agencies adopt a continuous mitigation and adaptation process. Successful fire-adapted community approaches have the potential to save lives, homes, and communities, as well as reduce suppression costs while allowing the beneficial ecological processes of fire to take place.

Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Unit

The Community Wildfire Risk Reduction team provides training, planning, technical assistance, access to data, and strategic investment funding resources to reduce wildfire risks to Oregon communities. The Community Wildfire Risk Reduction team focuses on preventing, educating, and mitigating wildfires. Additionally, the CWRR Unit supports the OSFM's Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program by empowering wildfire community preparedness, fostering relationships to encourage local fire prevention and education capacity, and educating Oregonians on mitigating their risk to life and property loss in the event of a wildfire.

Oregon State Fire Marshal has seven regional fire risk reduction specialists (FRRS) who work with local partners to create and promote fire-adapted communities in Oregon. The FRRSs act as the regional contact for fire chiefs and local partners to create solutions to reduce the community's wildfire risk. For an interactive map with contact information, visit the field staffing map.

Here are some examples of the projects regional FRRS can assist local communities with:

Training

Provide customized training based on the local community's needs.

Education

Assist with community meetings, educational events, and efforts to increase knowledge of wildfire risk and preparedness best practices.
Collaboratively create plans for risk reduction projects around critical infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.

Action

Demographic, geographic, and fire incident data to drive actions to identify and mitigate risks at various levels in local communities.
Data analysis to identify vulnerable populations, critical infrastructure, and wildfire risks to schools, hospitals, and eldercare facilities.

Wildfire Prevention Materials

Download a wildfire prevention social media toolkit by clicking here.

Contact Fire Adapted Oregon

osfm.cwrr@osfm.oregon.gov