SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon lawmakers approved $218 million in emergency wildfire funds during a Thursday special session that was convened to address unpaid bills stemming from the state’s 2024 record wildfire season.
As wildfires still rage in California, Oregon is among several states grappling with steep costs related to fighting wildfires this year. New Mexico lawmakers in a July special session approved millions in emergency aid for wildfire victims, and states including North Dakota and Wyoming have requested federal disaster declarations to help with recovery costs.
Fighting the blazes that scorched a record 1.9 million acres (769,000 hectares), or nearly 2,970 square miles (7,692 square kilometers), largely in eastern Oregon, cost the state over $350 million, according to Gov. Tina Kotek. The sum has made it the most expensive wildfire season in state history, her office said. While over half of the costs will eventually be covered by the federal government, the state still needs to pay the bills while waiting to be reimbursed.
“We had a historic wildfire season and we didn’t have enough money essentially in the bank to pay all of our bills. So as the state of Oregon, it was really important for us to make sure that we paid back those bills, especially as we’re going into the holiday season,” state Sen. Kate Lieber, who co-chairs the joint budget committee, told reporters Thursday.
The emergency funding bill passed with bipartisan support in both chambers, with the state Senate voting 25-2 and the state House voting 42-2 with 15 excused.
“Republicans and Democrats came together because we all agree firefighters deserve to be paid,” GOP state Rep. Jeff Helfrich said in a news release after the vote. “This bill delivers for the brave men and women who risked everything to keep our communities safe.”
Oregon wildfires this year destroyed at least 42 homes and burned large swaths of range and grazing land in the state’s rural east. At one point, the Durkee Fire, which scorched roughly 460 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) near the Oregon-Idaho border, was the largest in the nation.
Kotek declared a state of emergency in July in response to the threat of wildfire, and invoked the state’s Emergency Conflagration Act a record 17 times during the season.
Lawmakers approved the $218 million that Kotek had requested for the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal. The sum will help the agencies continue operations and pay the contractors that helped to fight the blazes and provide resources.
Speaking before the bill's final passage, state Rep. Mark Owens, who represents areas of eastern Oregon scarred by the fires, said many of the contractors are small business owners that have struggled to pay their employees and lines of credit.
“This should be a sign to all of us. We cannot let this happen again," he said.
The special session comes ahead of the start of the next legislative session in January, when lawmakers will be tasked with finding more permanent revenue streams for wildfire costs that have ballooned with climate change worsening drought conditions across the U.S. West.
Senate Minority Leader Daniel Bonham said lawmakers in the future should ensure there is enough funding for wildfires without having to resort to special sessions.
“We will continue to have wildfire risk until we do something about it," he said.
In the upcoming legislative session, Kotek wants lawmakers to increase wildfire readiness and mitigation funding by $130 million in the state’s two-year budget cycle going forward. She has also requested that $150 million be redirected from being deposited in the state’s rainy day fund, on a one-time basis, to fire agencies to help them pay for wildfire suppression efforts.
While Oregon’s 2024 wildfire season was a record in terms of cost and acreage burned, that of 2020 remains historic for being among the worst natural disasters in Oregon’s history. The 2020 Labor Day weekend fires killed nine people and destroyed upward of 5,000 homes and other structures.
Claire Rush, The Associated Press
