As a retired emergency manager in Oregon, I've seen the increased risk of urban interface fires spread across the West.? With anthropogenic climate change continuing to warm the earth, I'm afraid that conditions that sparked fires like those in LA are the new normal.? It's only a matter of time before events like we're currently witnessing expand across even more of the West.? Oregon had its most expensive wildland firefighting year to date in 2024, requiring an emergency session of the legislature to provide additional funding to battle fires.??
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While changes to building codes and zoning can help to prevent the risk from spreading into new neighborhoods, only a massive effort (very expensive) to retro-fit older structures and bury power lines, along with such things as changes in allowable landscaping will help to mitigate the risk of more frequent and larger urban interface fires.? This will require revenue increases both to respond to and mitigate the effects of fires.? Raising taxes to pay for it all, and rules banning large water-intensive landscaping will be unpopular, but likely necessary to keep fires like these from destroying even more homes and lives.?
