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Yamhill County emergency manager details evacuation zones, alerts and tower hardening ahead of fire season
Summary
Yamhill County emergency manager Bridal Young briefed the Board of Commissioners on drought conditions, a new evacuation‑zoning tool (Genesys) that feeds into the county alert system, search-and-rescue capacity, and recent work to clear fuels around a key communications tower; officials also discussed how county and Oregon Department of Forestry risk maps differ.
Yamhill County Emergency Manager Bridal Young told the Board of Commissioners on July 9 that much of the county is “abnormally dry” and that the county has stepped up technical and operational preparations for wildfire season.
Young said the county has implemented a new zoning and population‑estimation tool called Genesys that divides the county into evacuation zones and auto‑populates those zones into the county’s Everbridge alerting environment. “It now auto populates those zones into our alert warnings and notification system, Yamhill County alerts,” Young said, adding the system combines vendor‑supplied and opt‑in contact data to create roughly 14,500 unique contact paths for emergency messaging.
The emergency manager emphasized that automated alerts are only one layer of evacuation; door‑to‑door notification and boots‑on‑the‑ground response remain critical. He described a trained cadre of search‑and‑rescue volunteers — including ebike teams — who will assist law enforcement and fire crews during evacuations, and noted state‑level guidance and standardization from the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association and the Search and Rescue Advisory Council.
Young also highlighted recent infrastructure work at the county’s High Heaven radio tower site, showing before‑and‑after photos and saying county crews and partners masticated and removed trees and Scotch broom to create an approximately 50–60‑foot fuel buffer around the fenced communications equipment. The county occupies the site under an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, he said.
Board members pressed for clarity about public messaging when different risk maps disagree. Chair Johnston asked how the county’s drought‑monitor snapshot should be reconciled with Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) assessments that may lead ODF to close access points such as High Heaven Gate. A county fire official explained the distinction: the U.S. Drought Monitor tracks hydrological conditions (river and well levels), while ODF and fire‑agency assessments incorporate local fuel loads, undergrowth and atmospheric conditions that can make fuels “flashy” even when drought maps appear milder.
Young cautioned that national fire potential maps (National Interagency Fire Center) and drought assessments can change rapidly. “As of today our significant fire potential is little to no risk,” he said, “but who knows what it’s gonna be at the end of July and into August.”
Commissioners and public participants asked for lessons from the 2020 Chehalem Mountain response. Young credited the fairgrounds and livestock owners for easing evacuation pressures at that event and said the county now coordinates more deliberately with schools (for parking and staging), churches (as comfort stations when formal shelters are not required), Red Cross assessments of shelter capacity, and state mass‑care resources (ESF‑6).
No formal action was taken. The presentation concluded with commissioners thanking Young and noting the briefing was the last in the current hearing room before the county’s move to a new meeting space.
