This is the second time a statewide wildfire map has been released. The first one in 2022, called the wildfire risk map, was promptly withdrawn after public outcry over a lack of information about the map’s development.
Researchers then came up with a different way to present the environmental hazard each property faces from wildfire.
Derek Gasperini from the Oregon Department of Forestry said isn’t about what a property owner has done to defend their home from catching on fire.
“If you’re in a flood zone and you put your house on stilts, you’ve protected your structure from being flooded," he said. "But you haven’t changed the probability of a flood occurring.”
Andy McEvoy is an Oregon State University researcher that worked on the new hazard map. He said a big point of confusion for people was when one property might be labeled high hazard, while their neighbors were all in the moderate category.
“So we had to figure out which of those are objective and/or scientifically based, and where there might be some room for creating smoother transitions from one hazard class to the next," said McEvoy.
He said researchers used some smoothing techniques to make some of the transitions between categories less jarring where possible.
They also made some changes around agricultural lands. There were some changes made in the way that hay and pastureland are categorized, and land that's irrigated during the summer also received a reduction in hazard levels.
But, McEvoy noted that the hazard category is determined on a tax lot-by-tax lot basis. So while one piece of property might have a large portion of irrigated land, it might still deserve a high hazard category as a whole based on the rest of the property.
Around 106,000 tax lots in the state will be required to follow new building codes because of the wildfire risk. That includes any property in the high hazard category and located in the wildland-urban interface. That's the area on the boundary between developed land and wilderness.
There are around 14,000 fewer properties that will have to follow those building codes compared to the 2022 map, according to Envoy.
Those new building codes are still being developed. The process to finalize them will start later this year. Packets with more information are being mailed out to all properties that will have to follow those requirements.
Gasperini said property owners have until March 10th to appeal their hazard designation. A form is available on , as well as contact information for those with questions about the new map.
The map will be updated at least every five years, and property owners will be able to appeal every time that update happens.
