The Wildland Urban Interface in Southwest Most of our houses are wood frame construction.

In addition In Jackson and Josephine most rural Counties approximately homes are in 27,500 homes (25% of all dense young homes) are at risk from forest. . Suppression changed the structure and function of

frequent-fire ecosystems.

This created a 120 year buildup of fuels. • In 1996, the Hull was responsible for oneThey fatality Appear and to burned be Increasing 44 structures. in Ferocity • In 2002, the Biscuit Fire burned nearly 500,000 acres and cost taxpayers $160 million. • In 2010, the Oak Knoll Fire destroyed 11 homes. • 2017 Napa Fires destroyed about 8,900 structures, burned 245,000 acres, and caused the deaths of 44 people. • In 2018 the burned 229,651 acres at Redding, destroyed 1,077 homes, and killed 3 firefighters and 5 civilians. • destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. We learned that on top of the human tragedy, burned houses and cars exact a huge environmental price. The top 10 communities in Oregon with greatest cumulative housing-unit exposure to wildfire.

1 Merlin 2 Redwood 3 Medford

4 Bend 5 Warm Springs 6 Eagle Point 7 Redmond

8 Grants Pass 9 Ashland 10 Prineville Feds Capacity is Declining

The FS, BLM and NPS manage roughly half of Jackson & Josephine Counties.

Rogue & Siskiyou NF’s lost two thirds of it’s employees between 2002 and 2018. Fire behavior “Modeling conducted models predict a big to update the risk assessment for the problem Josephine & Jackson County Integrated Plans shows 57% of the landscape prone to passive or active canopy fires during weather conditions typical of large fire events.” What Can We

Do? Qualitative Differences Between Types of Fire Low severity: <25 percent of overstory trees are killed, limited effects on soils

Moderate severity: 25–75 percent of overstory trees killed and/or moderate effects on soils

High severity: >75 percent of overstory trees killed and/or extensive mineral soil exposure The idea is to emulate the conditions created by frequent low severity fire. You can modify the forest around your house so that it simply will not burn intensely under most conditions. Guidelines for Fuel Treatment Ideally you want reduced 0” to 3”

surface fuels Thin and prune away most of your ladder fuels to increase Canopy

Base Height Thin enough so tree crowns (aerial fuels) are not always touching Keep the largest trees of the most fire-resistant species Thin-Pile-Burn Common and very effective Applying basic fire behavior knowledge, the property owner can do much to prevent the kind of wild fire that eats houses. Thank You