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County highlights prescribed-fire pilot report showing increased acreage but warns sustained coordination required
Summary
Deschutes County officials shared a University of Oregon after-action review of a 2024 prescribed-fire smoke management pilot that allowed substantially more prescribed burning around west Bend; staff said repeating that scale will require coordinated commitments from land managers and air-quality and public-health agencies.
County officials at the board meeting distributed an after-action report prepared by the University of Oregon reviewing a 2024 prescribed-fire smoke management pilot that enabled a larger amount of prescribed burning around west Bend than in prior years.
A staff member told commissioners that the pilot allowed “something like 9 to 10 times the amount of prescribed fire in the areas immediately surrounding the west side of Bend” compared with recent years, and that the work required extensive coordination among the Forest Service, state agencies and county public health. The report, the staff member said, highlights “the very important role that Deschutes County Public Health played” in helping make the operations possible.
Speakers cautioned that repeating the same scale of burning will require continuing commitments across land management agencies, community wildfire protection partners and air-quality regulators, and that the coordination is staff-hour intensive. One commissioner said prescribed fire is the “final step” after thinning and explained that mechanical treatments alone (including proposed grazing) are not a substitute where pine needles and duff remain.
Why it matters: large-scale prescribed fire can reduce fuels and lower the risk of high-severity wildfire near populated areas, but managing smoke and public-health messaging requires planning and cross-jurisdictional agreement.
Ending: The county circulated the report to legislators and partner agencies and urged consideration of multi-year commitment and staffing to sustain prescribed-fire scales that reduce wildfire risk.
