Oregon SB 762 (2021): Relating to wildfire; and declaring an emergency

On April 23, 2021, the Oregon legislature passed a comprehensive wildfire planning and mitigation bill. The bill involves multiple state agencies and calls for a wide range of action to address wildfire in the state, including planning for wildfire, land use and development methods for mitigating wildfire, health programs, and landscape resiliency programs. 

Amidst increasing concern over wildfire risk in Oregon, Governor Kate Brown issued Executive Order 19-01 in 2019, which created the Governor’s Council on Wildfire Response. Throughout 2019, the committee assessed Oregon’s wildfire “prevention, preparedness, and response” to determine if the established system for addressing wildfire could cope with increasing risk. The Council determined that Oregon needed to make significant changes in order to responsibly handle increasing wildfire risk and made policy recommendations, which spurred the creation of SB 762. 

SB 762 instructs several state agencies to plan or facilitate planning to address the threat of wildfires. The Public Utility Commission must organize workshops for public utilities providing electricity in order to help them develop and implement best practices for wildfire mitigation and resilience. Public utilities providing electricity must then in turn have and comply with a “risk-based wildfire protection plan” that protects public safety and promotes system resilience, including through cost-effective risk mitigation measures, preventive actions, deenergizing protocols, and infrastructure inspections. The State Forestry Department must also contribute to planning for future wildfire risk by creating and maintaining a state map of wildfire risk in partnership with Oregon State University. The map must be detailed enough to determine risk from property to property and will be used to create a public wildfire risk portal, the Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer.  The act also creates a Wildfire Programs Advisory Council and a State Wildfire Programs Director in order to facilitate coordination between state agencies and ensure the effective implementation of the bill. 

Beyond planning, SB 762 includes provisions on land use in order to mitigate wildfire. The State Fire Marshal must develop minimum defensible space requirements for land within the wildland-urban interface, which the bill defines as “an area in which humans or human development meets or intermixes with wildland fuels.” The requirements must apply statewide for areas designated by the state wildfire risk map as extreme or high risk and in the WUI, though local governments may adopt and enforce greater defensible space requirements within their jurisdiction. The State Fire Marshall is also tasked with managing a community risk reduction program to educate the community on defensible space and wildfire preparedness. In order to limit wildfire risk for new properties, SB 762 requires the Department of Consumer and Business Services to develop building standards for new construction which make the structures more resilient to wildfire hazards.

The bill also recognizes the importance of addressing the health impacts of increasing rates of wildfire and instructs the Department of Environmental Quality to create a community program that supports the local population in “monitoring, interpreting and communicating data related to ambient air quality conditions.” SB 762 additionally instructs the Oregon Health Authority to administer both a clean air shelter grant program and a program to increase accessibility of smoke filtration systems. 

SB 762 focuses on landscape resiliency as well, tasking the State Forestry Department with creating a program to both increase resiliency and reduce the presence of hazardous fuel on private and public land. The bill establishes an Oregon Conservation Corps Program to assist with these landscape resiliency projects and other wildfire risk reduction efforts in communities. The Forestry Department must also administer a grant program for small woodland owners to support them in fostering wildfire resiliency on their own land. 

SB 762 created new provisions in chapter 757 of the Oregon Revised Statutes on regulating utilities. The bill also amended chapters on comprehensive land use planning (ORS 197), county clerks (ORS 205), emergency management and services (ORS 401) and fire protection of forests and vegetation (ORS 477). 

 

Publication Date: June 26, 2021

Related Organizations:

  • State of Oregon

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Resource Types:

  • Laws

States Affected:

Impacts:

  • Wildfires

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