Resolution No. 4814 - Laserfiche WebLink

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9,3 Historical Data for Wild,and Fires in Oregon The Oregon Department of Forestry website (www.odf. state.or, us) has a table of the most important historical fires in Oregon over the past 150 years. Of the 12 major fires, the five largest fires ali occurred between 1848 and 1868. The two largest fires, the 1868 Coos Bay fire and the 1849 Siletz fire consumed 988,000 and 800,000 acres of wildland, respective~y. The next four largest fires occurred between 1933 and 1945, with each fire consuming between 240,000 and 180,000 acres. The most recent fire listed, the 1987 Silver Fire burned 97,000 acres. None of these major fires occurred in Lane County. More recent major fires include the 2002 Biscuit Fire that burned nearly 500,000 total acres (with about 471,000 acres in Oregon and nearly 29,000 acres in California) and the 2003 B&B Complex fire that burned 90,769 acres. The Oregon Department of Forestry website (www.odf. state.or, us) has severa~ categories of wildland fire data listed, including: numbers of forest fires and numbers of acres burned in Oregon forest ~ands for 1986 to 2003. However, these ODF data are only for ODF-responsibility ~ands and do not include forest lands where primary fire suppression responsibility is federal or local. These data, which wil~ presumably be updated from time to time, provide one measure of wildland fire data for Oregon. For ODF responsibility lands in Oregon as a whole, the 10-year average number of wildland fires is 1,062. Since 1986, the largest number of acres burned in one year was 99,060 in 2002, while the lowest number of acres burned in one year was 1,410 in 1997. For the entire state of Oregon, both the number of fires and the acres burned are higher than these ODF data alone. The United States Forest Service (Department of Agriculture), in cooperation with several agencies from the Department of the Interior, has recently published a report identifying wildland/urban interface communities within the vicinity of Federal lands that are a high risk from wildfire (Federal Register, Volume 66, Number 3, pages 751-777, January 4, 2001). For Oregon, these identified high-risk communities and areas did not include the Eugene/Springfield Metro Area or any communities in Lane County. The Oregon Department of Forestry website 0A~,vw.odf. state.or.us) has an excellent map showing forest coverage and forest type throughout Oregon. Oregon Department of Forestry data on forest ownership areas are shown below in Table 9-3 for Oregon. Public Review Draft: August 6, 2004 9-12