It’s wildfire season in Oregon, and this year could be a big one. As we work our way toward better disaster preparedness with KLCC’s Oregon Ready, we look at how one community continues to prepare for what’s becoming a yearly reality: longer fire seasons and higher risk.
Leonard Herzstein stands outside the Upper Olalla Schoolhouse and community center outside Winston and Tenmile. Herzstein has lived in this rural corner of Douglas County since the 1970s. He’s watched the landscape change, and the danger grow.
“What's really happened is that everything's just drying out. The chance of fire is just growing more every year,” said Herzstein.
Fire officials say homes with defensible space — that buffer between buildings and vegetation — fare much better in a wildfire.
Herzstein points out how the landscape around the old schoolhouse reflects that work: mowed grass, no brush within 30 feet of the structure, and thinned trees.
Creating defensible space, and maintaining it, can feel overwhelming — especially in rural places where homes sit among wildfire fuels.
That’s because building and maintaining that space takes time — and effort.
“It's not a one and done,” explained Herzstein. “You cut back the blackberries, the next year they just grow worse, or the poison oak pops up instead.”
Defensible space and power in numbers
While creating defensible space is good for individual properties, the real power comes when more homes in a community do the same.
“We're still close enough that whatever happens on your property is going to affect your neighbors,” said Herzstein.
And that’s where a national program called Firewise USA comes in.
“Firewise is a program that was developed to help communities take measures to reduce the wildfire damage impact on community, essentially,” said Lily Wheaton, a forester with the Douglas Forest Protective Association. “When we look at what wildfires do to a community or what they do to a place, it's based off of weather, topography, and fuel. And fuel is the one thing out of those three that we can help manage.”
The Firewise program works at both the household and neighborhood level. To be a recognized Firewise community, neighbors have to work together. At least eight homes commit to maintaining defensible space and offering yearly preparedness education.
“We're still close enough that whatever happens on your property is going to affect your neighbors.”
Leonard Herzstein, Upper Olalla Firewise Community Leader
Herzstein said he learned about Firewise from DFPA in 2013 and soon formed a committee with a handful of neighbors. They brought in a wildfire specialist to assess properties and point out risks.
Those can include things like vegetation too close to the home… debris in gutters, or what experts call “ladder fuels” — plants that let fire climb from the ground into the trees.
After that assessment, homeowners decide what changes to make. In some cases, Firewise grant funding can cover things like clearing heavy brush or reducing hazardous fuels — but funding is competitive and not guaranteed.
“They can either go out and by their own means they can perform them, whether they pay for someone to come out and do it, or they do it themselves,” explained Wheaton. “DFPA has obviously historically had the capacity to help out using grant-funded fuel-reduction crews if we have heavy fuel loads, blackberries, Scotch broom, poison oak, that kind of stuff.
“Maybe if they're elderly or they're disabled and they really don't have the capacity to do it, we can assist them to whatever degree we're able.”
Funding and fueling fire preparedness
In 2021, Oregon lawmakers approved a $220 million package designed to modernize the state's wildfire preparedness, response, and community resilience. From that bill, Herzstein’s group received a $75,000 grant to pay for Firewise work.
Herzstein said interest is sporadic, but after the 2017 Horse Prairie Fire, more people in his community realized the importance of creating defensible space.
“People were scared. It was maybe still 5 miles away from us and it was burning the other way, but we got the ash falling on us through that,” he said. “And, it's like other communities that suddenly, during the Labor Day fires — they didn't think it was going to happen to them, and it did. And, that's the time when people really piqued their interests.”
Drive through the Upper Olalla Firewise community today and the difference is visible: homes with great defensible space sit alongside others thick with brush, right up to the siding.
There are 117 properties that are part of the Upper Olalla Firewise community. Herzstein said while everyone knows the wildfire risk is great in this rural area, getting people on board can be a challenge. But like with all disaster preparedness, it comes down to small steps:
“It's not like you have to do all this stuff in one year. I mean, it's 13 years going on and I'm still working on my own house, and I don't expect everybody else to get everything done at once,” he admitted. “I think the biggest thing we're maybe getting one new family or dwelling to participate in the defensible space and fire wise every year.”
It’s a gradual process for homeowners — and one that’s increasingly supported by fire agencies taking a more proactive role.
Shifting from suppression to prevention
DFPA is working to change how wildfire agencies approach the problem year-round. Traditionally, many agencies operate on a seasonal model — focusing resources on suppressing fires once they start. But Rachael Pope with DFPA said grant funding has allowed them to keep firefighters on staff beyond peak fire season, putting them to work on prevention.
“By being able to invest in prevention and defensible space around our communities, we not only help reduce fire starts, but we keep firefighters engaged and connected to the areas they may later protect,” Pope said.
That hands-on work, not only in Firewise communities, but in other high wildfire risk areas — clearing brush, reducing fuels, and helping homeowners — gives crews a deeper familiarity with neighborhoods: access points, escape routes, and which homes are more likely to survive in a wildfire.
“When a fire does happen, and resources are limited, that knowledge really matters,” Pope explained. “We’re constantly having to evaluate where we can be most effective — which homes we have a fighting chance to protect based on the conditions on the ground.”
That kind of familiarity on the ground translates directly into how firefighters are able to respond when a wildfire hits.
“So that when we need to come in to help protect their properties during a wildfire event, fires were lower severity, lower intensity, we could, there was space for us to move, vehicles around to help protect their homes, and that their home would be still standing when they came back to it,” Wheaton explained. “And not just a home, not just a burnt landscape, but a community ready for them to come back to.”
A growing movement across Oregon
Oregon currently has 353 recognized Firewise USA communities in good standing across the state, second only to California — a sign that more communities are taking preparedness into their own hands. Deschutes County leads the way in Oregon with 103 communities, followed by Jackson (76), Douglas (37), Lane (18), Benton (7), and Lincoln (3). Linn County currently has no recognized communities in good standing, but there are a few communities working towards recognition.
After more than a decade helping organize his neighbors, Herzstein — a former volunteer firefighter — says the work has always been about something bigger than any one home. “Yeah, I think it's really a community thing. Having been a volunteer in the fire department, my volunteer is to the community. That's the way I see it.”
And in Upper Olalla, that work is ongoing — one property, and one neighbor at a time.
