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Deschutes commissioners hear hours of public concern and expert explanation over state wildfire hazard map
Summary
Commissioners spent the morning and part of the afternoon on Senate Bill 762/80 and the statewide wildfire hazard map, hearing about insurance, mapping methods, federal land treatments and community mitigation. No formal resolution was adopted; commissioners asked staff and legislators for follow-up and to relay constituent concerns.
Commissioners and a packed public room spent hours discussing the statewide wildfire hazard map produced under Senate Bill 762 (amended by later bills including SB 80), with residents urging the county to oppose portions of the map and staff and experts explaining what the map does and does not require.
The meeting opened with multiple speakers during citizen input and continued into an extended agenda item on the wildfire hazard map. Commissioner Chang said the county should focus on actions that reduce the risk of homes burning and cautioned against letting the map fight distract from fuels work: “trying to make the maps go away is a distraction from helping us protect Deschutes County homeowners, from losing their homes in the next wildfire,” he said.
County Forester Kevin Moriarty and Associate Planner Kyle Collins presented technical details of the map and the implementation path in state rulemaking. Moriarty stressed that the R3-27 “fire hardening” building standards that the state would apply to new development are already in common use and not brand-new, arguing they are practical measures rather than radical change: “These are not radical new building materials that are being forced upon people,” he said.
Many residents told the commissioners the state map had singled out individual parcels that appeared similar to their neighbors and that the map’s parcel-level designations had caused alarm about insurance and resale. Sita Kelly, a Bend resident who submitted written testimony in advance, asked the county to join other Oregon counties in opposing SB 762’s Section 8 and to coordinate a regional response: “Deschutes has the opportunity to be part of the trifecta and make us stand together as Central Oregonians,” she said. Agricultural and rural owners pressed the point that irrigated land and other local conditions were not always reflected in the statewide product.
Others who work in wildfire response urged caution about rejecting science-based mapping outright. Keith Rocco, a long‑time wildland firefighter and local Republican party chair, said the statewide hazard map cannot substitute for site‑level tactical decision making but also warned that removing the map entirely could create resource‑allocation problems in planning. “The wildfire hazard map in SB 762 can’t do that. It does not provide any useful information that can lead to success,” he told the board, while also saying the map’s absence would not provide the tactical data firefighters use day to day.
Commissioners and staff repeatedly separated three things that the map can, and cannot, do: (1) the map assigns a landscape‑level hazard classification that is intended to guide where statewide defensible‑space and building‑standard rules would attach to new development; (2) the map itself does not directly set insurance company premiums — insurers use proprietary models and claim history to make underwriting decisions — but residents reported correlation between map notices and changes in the insurance market; and (3) many of the mitigation tools that reduce the real risk of losing homes — fuels treatments on federal lands, local projects, and neighborhood hardening programs — remain the county’s top priorities.
No formal county ordinance or resolution opposing the map was adopted at the meeting. The board agreed to continue public engagement; commissioners asked legal and community development staff to review appeal procedures, and the chair said she would be in contact with state legislators. The board asked staff to prepare materials (including links to the appeal form and technical guidance) and to follow the governor’s and legislature’s incoming work on the topic.
Why it matters: homeowners, small landlords and rural businesses say parcel-level classifications are damaging property values and disrupting transactions; county officials say greater clarity and more resources for fuels reduction and home hardening are the practical solutions. The discussion laid out the immediate political, technical and community challenges the county will press with state lawmakers in coming weeks.
What’s next: the board asked staff to collect appeal instructions into the meeting record, to follow up with the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon State Fire Marshal about the definitional and appeals process, and to communicate constituent concerns to state legislators.
