Planning for Wildfire Resilience

Mountain scene with a rugged peak in the background, a sky with pink and purple clouds, a forest of green pines, and many dead trees with charred or missing bark and branches in the foreground.

Today, wildfire seasons are longer, hotter, and more destructive than ever.

Climate change, outdated policies, and rapid development in fire-prone areas are raising the stakes and turning a natural process into a community crisis.

A rural landscape with a vast field of green grass and a few trees, under a sky filled with large, orange-brown smoke clouds from a distant wildfire.

Fire is a natural part of life in Central Oregon.

Native plants and animals have evolved to coexist with the natural fire that has shaped our region’s fire-adapted landscapes for millennia. Now, we must evolve too—by planning communities to coexist with fire.

Volcano erupting with large clouds of dark smoke, smoke rising from the base, snow-covered mountain in the background, green fields in the foreground.

LandWatch believes we can coexist safely alongside wildfire.

Oregon’s visionary land use planning system provides us with the necessary tools to reduce risk and build resilience.

By steering growth into safer areas, avoiding development in high-risk zones, and promoting defensible space around our cities and towns, we can reduce the threat of destructive wildfire before it reaches our doorsteps.

Stopping every wildfire simply isn’t possible—but designing our communities with fire in mind is achievable and necessary.

Learn More About Forest Ecology, Wildfire Preparedness, and the Wildland Urban Interface

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Controlled burns reduce wildfire risk, but they require trained staff and funding − this could be a rough year
Wildfire, wildland urban interface, climate change, US Forest Service
Controlled burns reduce wildfire risk, but they require trained staff and funding − this could be a rough year
Wildfire, wildland urban interface, climate change, US Forest Service

The combined effects of a warmer and drier climate, more people living in fire-prone areas and vegetation and debris built up over years of fire suppression are leading to more severe fires that spread faster and put people, wild lands and economies at risk. Prescribed burns are a solution, but the U.S. Forest Service need the staffing, data and research to carry them out.

Wildfire, wildland urban interface, climate change, US Forest Service
Coexisting With Fire
wildfire, wildland urban interface, Forests
Coexisting With Fire
wildfire, wildland urban interface, Forests

Wildfire is essential in our landscape, and an expected element of living, working, and playing in Central Oregon. As we plan for the future, we must learn to coexist with fire.

wildfire, wildland urban interface, Forests
‘Fire season is here,’ Gov. Kotek declares May Wildfire Awareness Month, state prepares
Wildfire, wildfire preparedness
‘Fire season is here,’ Gov. Kotek declares May Wildfire Awareness Month, state prepares
Wildfire, wildfire preparedness

The 2025 fire season is projected to be more intense than the 2024 season fire leaders said, but emergency response agencies have begun preparing early

Wildfire, wildfire preparedness