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State Fire Marshal briefs lawmakers on new KPMs and seeks funds for 2025 fire costs and 2026 mobilization
Summary
The State Fire Marshal described revised key performance measures, reviewed the 2025 fire season and asked the subcommittee to forward LFO recommendations to cover 2025 fire costs ($7.62M revised) and to provide $7M for 2026 mobilization cash flow plus $500,000 for cost‑recovery work; the subcommittee voted to forward the requests.
Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Reese Temple presented revised key performance measures (KPMs) and a recap of the 2025 fire season to the Joint Interim Committee on Ways and Means — Public Safety subcommittee on Jan. 14, then requested several appropriations and expenditure limitations.
Revised and new KPMs include maintaining customer service baselines, a modernized measure of structures saved after conflagration that incorporates pre‑positioning and immediate response, a new metric to inspect high‑risk occupancies (hospitals, long‑term care, childcare) and an updated education and prevention metric designed to drive a compound annual growth rate below 0% in fatalities.
Reese Temple summarized the 2025 season as one of the most structurally damaging in recent decades: she cited roughly 1.9 million acres burned, six "megafires," eight conflagrations and major structure losses (Rowena conflagration with approximately 140 structures lost). The agency estimated total costs at about $17.6 million and asked the subcommittee to forward LFO‑recommended adjustments: a revised request of $7,621,128 GF to close the 2025 fire season gap (the LFO adjusted the agency estimate to reflect federal receipts and earlier biennial accounting), $7 million GF for 2026 mobilization cash flow, and $500,000 other fund limitation to support cost‑recovery activities under the recently enacted fire cost recovery law (senate bill cited in agency remarks).
DAS and LFO staff recommended acknowledging receipt of KPM updates and recommended including the requested funding in the 2026 reconciliation bill. Committee members praised the marshal’s office and asked for continued coordination with other preparedness entities. The subcommittee moved each request to the full committee with the LFO recommendation; motions carried by voice vote with no recorded objections.
The subcommittee action forwards LFO recommendations for inclusion in the 2026 reconciliation bill and does not itself appropriate the funds. The marshal’s office said the mobilization cash flow request addresses the requirement to pay local responders in the interval between deployment and federal reimbursements, and the cost‑recovery funding covers origin and cause investigations, legal and expert witness contracts.
