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The Power Eastern Oregon Podcast explores topics which affect small towns and rural communities in eastern Oregon and beyond. With the help of business and community partners, we will discuss the foundations of healthy communities, innovative new technologies, and challenges we all face. We’ll also explore the value of cooperatives and member-owned utilities and how Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative contributes to the health and growth of our service territory.
Paige Witham:
If you only remember one thing today,
let it be this.
When the fire danger level changes,
your actions should too.
Check conditions before heading outdoors.
Minutes matter, especially in rural communities.
Welcome to the Power Eastern Oregon Podcast.
Today we're talking about what fire season looks like on the
ground,
how rural fire departments prepare,
and what those fire danger signs mean for your day to day
choices. And to give us the subject matter experts insight,
we've got Baker Rural Fire Protection District Chief Sean Lee.
Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Sean Lee:
Thank you.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, absolutely. So we'll just get right into it.
We normally do safety share after,
but we started with that today.
So for folks who haven't been inside of a rural fire department,
what does a typical summer week look like?
Sean Lee:
Well, for us, the rural districts are mostly all volunteer.
And so we don't have people in the station typically.
If we know there's fire weather coming,
a red flag day, we will try to have some people come in and staff
the station as we can during the afternoons.
But we're all volunteer, usually older equipment and sometimes
older folks.
It would be nice to have a lot of younger people come join us.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what's really cool about the
volunteer side of it is it gives younger people an
opportunity to see what that career field –
Sean Lee:
It does.
Paige Witham:
– could be like.
Sean Lee:
And we're happy to train them and have them move on to a career.
Paige Witham:
That's awesome. That's awesome. So what surprises people most
about responding to events in these wide
rural areas that we call home?
Sean Lee:
Probably the range of calls that we respond to and the number of
responders that we get on any given day.
We respond to essentially all hazards in the fire service,
from EMS to wildland,
structure fire, hazmat calls. And some days we'll have ten
responders,
and some days we'll have one.
Paige Witham:
Wow.
Sean Lee:
And we never know from day to day what we get.
Paige Witham:
Yeah.
Sean Lee:
It depends on their availability as volunteers.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. Yeah. So what I'm hearing is more volunteers means better
coverage across the county.
Sean Lee:
Yes.
Paige Witham:
That's great. So when fire danger signs change color,
what do you want people to do differently?
Sean Lee:
So we are entering fire season on June 8th this year,
which means the fire danger signs will move to moderate,
which is blue, which is the time we start writing burn permits.
We don't write burn permits at low.
Paige Witham:
Okay.
Sean Lee:
We do mirror what the Oregon Department of Forestry does for fire
danger because they cover a lot of our district.
And so to keep it fair and easy for people to understand,
we do the same thing.
As we move to moderate, we'll start requesting burn permits.
And then as it moves up into the higher fire dangers,
we hit high.
Open burning is closed. The county also just passed a new burn
ordinance for county wide burning.
And it spells out a lot of the do's and don'ts of burning.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. So the ordinance, can you just find it on the county
website?
Sean Lee:
Yes, it is on the county website.
Paige Witham:
Perfect. We'll make sure to link that in the description.
Sean Lee:
When we get to extreme, obviously there is no burning at all.
We get to extreme fire danger.
Paige Witham:
That's bad.
Sean Lee:
Things are bad. Yeah, yeah.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, no. That's great. So what is one misunderstanding that you
think is probably most common about the fire danger
levels?
Sean Lee:
One of the common things we see or hear is people didn't know.
They didn't know the fire danger level.
Paige Witham:
Yeah.
Sean Lee:
And it's on us to do a better job of getting that message out.
We posted on our website. We posted on Facebook and obviously our
fire danger signs,
hopefully where most people travel.
But even even at that, we hear we didn't know the fire danger was
high.
So we just need to be people to be more aware of their
surroundings,
what the weather is doing that day and has been doing.
Paige Witham:
Absolutely. And one thing that I've seen is that social media can
really be a benefit in that.
So, you know, if you're someone listening to this podcast and you
regularly see those fire danger levels changing,
you know, if you're a person that pays attention to that kind of
thing,
share it with your friends. Word of mouth is like the quickest
way to get information out,
even in this technological age. And we can all do our part to
help raise awareness of those fire levels.
Sean Lee:
Another good resource for that is the Blue Mountain Interagency
Dispatch.
Paige Witham:
Okay.
Sean Lee:
Their website will have all that information for our area on it,
so they can look it up there as well.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, it's a great, great resource.
What I'm hearing is that different levels should lead to
different decisions, especially around outdoor work and
recreation. I've heard talk about a new way to draw attention to
red flag conditions.
What is that approach, and why does it matter?
Sean Lee:
So this year we're trying a new program out that the Department
of Interior brought to us.
In fact, they bought the flags in the poles and the mounts for
us.
So during red flag weather days,
we will put red flags, actual red flags,
out on all our fire danger signs.
Paige Witham:
Oh, great.
Sean Lee:
They will go up when red flag is enacted,
and they will come down when it ends.
Paige Witham:
Okay.
Sean Lee:
And so it's just an extra visual for people to be thinking about
as they drive by our sign,
and they see a big red flag hanging out that today's a bad fire
weather day.
Be extra careful and mindful of what they're doing.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. No that's great. And so can you talk a little bit about
what that red flag means,
kind of what sets off that standard for red flags?
Sean Lee:
So red flag warnings are usually caused by low humidity,
high winds and dry
vegetation, all combined. You know,
if we're going to have a wind event when it's been dry,
the humidity is down. They will put a red flag warning out until
that event comes through and is over.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, and we just had a pretty significant wind event last week.
Sean Lee:
We did.
Paige Witham:
And not just Baker, but also like in all of the counties that we
serve,
it was kind of not, I don't want to say scary,
but it was kind of scary,
you know, in the way of, well, what is this lightning going to do
to all this vegetation?
And then the wind picking up whatever the lightning might cause.
And so it's really nice to know that if red flag systems or
warnings are coming up,
we have a place that we can really quickly identify,
oh, the flag is up.
Sean Lee:
Yes.
Paige Witham:
We need to be careful. That's great.
So let's talk a little bit about what the early signs you watch
for heading into a wildfire season
are.
Sean Lee:
So this year, the predictive services folks have been watching it
pretty closely due to the,
what they're calling the snow drought this year.
Significant fire potential starting in June this year.
Usually it doesn't hit us 'til July usually.
They're calling for a significant potential in June,
and then it just grows through July,
September, October. And they're also predicting the super El Nino
to form this fall and extend fire
season.
Paige Witham:
I see. So an El Nino is the dry one?
Sean Lee:
Drier, warmer weather.
Paige Witham:
Okay, okay. Yeah. I've seen the map of that,
and I was like, I don't know what this means.
No, but that's good information.
So what can families do now to be prepared before the conditions
worsen?
Sean Lee:
The thing we always talk about is defensible space around your
home.
Trimming your trees, bushes, clearing flammable materials away
from your house,
out from under your decks. Making sure your road is clear.
Your driveway is wide enough to get vehicles in.
That is one of our biggest obstacles in some of our areas is we
can't get our big trucks in.
Paige Witham:
I see.
Sean Lee:
Those kinds of activities help us a great deal when the fire is
coming,
and we don't have much time. If their homes are prepared,
they stand a better chance.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, yeah, that's great insight.
And, you know, I've heard a lot of recent successes from you
guys.
You know, you're able to save millions of dollars worth of
equipment just last week,
and in part because it had a lot of those features,
it was wide open,
you know.
Sean Lee:
Somebody had just mowed the two foot tall grass and the fire had
gotten to the mowed line.
As we got there, and we were able to get it stopped.
Paige Witham:
Wow. Wow.
Sean Lee:
If they hadn't mowed, we'd have lost everything.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. Wow. What a great story about how one person's,
what could be seen as small act of
preparedness, made a huge difference.
Sean Lee:
It doesn't take much. You don't have to completely obliterate
your vegetation.
You just have to clean up. Limb up.It'll still look nice.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, for sure.
Sean Lee:
Just a little bit helps.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, absolutely. So what I'm hearing throughout this entire
conversation is watch the level,
make sure to adjust your behaviors to that and prepare early.
So just take ten minutes this week to talk with your family about
what a high risk day might look like for you and your family and
what you would do differently in that situation.
Every OTEC office has defensible space guides,
as we were just talking about,
and otec.coop/wildfire has many resources if you prefer the
digital format.
Chief Lee, we've talked a bit about the websites that you guys
use.
We'll make sure to link those in the description.
Is there anything else that you would like to say?
Sean Lee:
Pay attention to the weather. Pay attention to the conditions and
just please be careful this summer.
It's adding up to be an extreme fire season.
Anything can happen. If we don't get the lightning,
people don't make mistakes,
we could skate through. But, it's things are adding up to be a
bad year.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, yeah, it's ominous for sure.
And being prepared and just taking that extra time and maybe not
having the campfire when you're up at camp,
it can make a really big difference.
And if you're listening to this and you have time,
consider volunteering for the Rural Fire
Department.
Sean Lee:
Please volunteer for any rural fire department.
Paige Witham:
Yes, it can save lives. You can learn on the job training,
and you can make a huge impact in
your community.
Sean Lee:
Yes.
Paige Witham:
Thank you for your time today, Chief Lee,
and thank you, listeners,
for sharing how to keep safe this fire season with anybody that
you know.
And if you've enjoyed today's episode,
please take a moment to follow us on your favorite podcast
platform and rate the episode. We'll talk to you next time on the
Power Eastern Oregon Podcast.