Fighting Oregon's Wildfire Crisis Calls for Increased Preparedness
The Rogue Siskiyou Regional Wildfire Training Facility, spearheaded by a grassroots coalition of Oregon citizens, addresses the critical shortage of trained firefighters.
With over $2 million raised, it aims to construct a $34 million training center in the Euchre Creek Valley, providing state-of-the-art facilities with ground, and air support for firefighting and public safety training.
The Challenge
Picture tens of thousands of acres in flames. You’re a fire commander in this inferno, and you know you could stop this devastation. If you only had enough trained personnel…but you don’t.
In 2017 and 2018, just two wildfires in Oregon ravaged 366,000 acres, decimating over 10 million birds and various wildlife species. The destruction extended to homes, generational ranches, farmlands, recreational areas, and valuable timber. Severe air quality deterioration and tourism decline ensued.
Not having enough trained wildfire personnel available is the critical dilemma our fire commanders face each wildfire season in Oregon.
Realizing the desperate need for more trained wildfire personnel, a broad-based coalition of dedicated Oregonians have banded together to build our state’s first facility dedicated to wildfire training.
In 2020, the apocalyptic Obenchain and Almeda fires destroyed over 3,000 homes and businesses, leaving 8,500 residents homeless in the Rogue Valley.
Long-term repercussions include erosion impacting vital river ecosystems. The Chetco Bar Fire narrowly spared Brookings due to wind shift. Subsequent Southern Oregon wildfires in 2023 threatened lives, property, and coastal regions, highlighting the need for early intervention with resident smokejumper teams and additional ground support.
Every post-fire analysis has pointed to understaffing as one of the key reasons for the massive scope of damage these wildfires cause.
“We need more trained fire fighters for the large project fires. We run out of trained fire crews every year and fires get bigger as a direct result”
Mark Labhart
Incident Commander for Oregon’s Fire Team 1
of the Governor’s Wildfire Response Council
The Facility
The Rogue Siskiyou Regional Wildfire Training Center (RSR) will be located just north of Gold Beach on Highway 101.
It will be constructed at a former mill site on two adjoining flat parcels totaling over 30 acres.
Thanks to wonderful support from Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple, our state legislature (with dedicated leadership from Senator David Brock Smith and State Representative Court Boice) the Bandon Dunes Charitable Foundation, the Oregon Community Foundation, Curry County, The Oregon Children's Foundation, and the City of Gold Beach, we have already raised over $2 million dollars in cash and donations toward this $34 million-dollar effort to build a wildfire training center.
The funds raised to date have secured the facility property, completed important environmental work, initial site prep and security work, preliminary engineering, and architectural design.
If the RSR training facility had been up and running with helicopter and crews on site, we believe the Oak Flat and Anvil Fires would not have escalated to massive wildfires.
Catastrophic wildfires threaten public safety, public health, our environment, and our economy.”
Doug Grafe
Wildfire Advisor for Governor Tina Kotek