In his role as Justice of the Peace in Jackson County, Joe Charter will be based in Central Point, handling traffic court and municipal code violations throughout the county, with the exception of Medford and Ashland.

Jackson County Fire District 5 Chief Charles Hanley has some 47 years of job experience. He was previously a fire chief in Pinole and Rodeo-Hercules in Contra Costa County, California, and a deputy chief in Santa Rosa, California.

His entire family faced evacuations from Santa Rosa fires in 2017, 2019 and 2020. A framed script in his office says simply, “Praemonitus,” Latin for “forewarned.” Competing public policy choices determine the second half the proverb, whether communities are forearmed with resources necessary to successfully control increasingly frequent large-scale fires.

There are three elements of fire prevention and response: mitigation, water supply and weight of attack. Mitigation includes preparing houses to better withstand the possibility of firestorms. Water supply is generally fixed. Once fire season starts, the only resource left is weight of attack: fire equipment and personnel.

On the day of the Almeda Fire, Sept. 8, 2020, alarms signaling the start of the fire in Ashland began at the same time Hanley was on a conference call with the Oregon State Fire Marshal, who said there were no further resources available anywhere: “no engines, no air assets, nothing.”

“I resigned myself to figure out what we were going to do with what we had. Your focus is on building a box around the incident,” says Hanley. We were at “Preparedness Level 5:” operating in crisis mode, support systems maxed out and resources unavailable.

Three other fires … eventually burning more than 150,000 acres, started along with Almeda. Siskiyou County’s Slater Fire started Sept. 8 and spread into Josephine County. The 30,000-acre South Obenchain Fire started the same day. “It was … the perfect storm. You had simultaneous mega fires, draw-down, and weather conditions that were extraordinary,” he said.

“It was an unstoppable fire. You basically had a blowtorch condition.”

“The Fire District was crippled pretty badly, just like the community was.” Current projects include rebuilding Fire Station 3 — part of the new government and public safety building in Phoenix — and the Emigrant Lake fire station, while building up staffing.

To increase staffing, the district and union developed an apprenticeship program in partnership with the state. The program provides 830 hours of training and pays for the two degrees required, firefighter and paramedic, which can cost $45,000. “We’re the first in the state and a model for the rest of the country.” Hanley notes that the job has become “exponentially more hazardous. They could be on a fire the first day on the job.”

A current policy debate is whether to spend money on forest fuels reduction or on hardening the 100- to 200-foot “defensible space” around each residence. Hanley notes that Almeda caused $2.2 billion in damages, and cost $750 million in clean-up efforts. Options being debated include hazardous fuels reduction, forest thinning, replacing flammable vegetation near residences with hardscape and using “gray water” and purple pipe to identify and use non-potable recycled water for firefighting.

On a major fire, “We’re going to send in 15,000 firefighters, and we’re going to send them when it’s too late. Those same firefighters, working year-round, doing controlled burns and fuel mitigation is less costly than suppression costs of trying to defend structures in an impossible situation,” he says.

“The best way to help your neighbors is to take care of yourself. Be independent and then you can help” others. Hanley encourages citizens to think about how to live without power for a week, which was common after the Almeda Fire.

As the Santa Rosa emergency coordinator, Hanley developed the COPE program, Citizens Organized to Prepare for Emergencies. The program outlines steps for identifying neighborhood assets, needs and escape routes, and developing emergency plans and kits. Jackson County publishes a handbook, “Get Ready Rogue,” with similar information and “go kit” checklists. 

“Let’s figure out what we got to do and fix it,” says Hanley. “There’s power and strength in numbers.”

“The ability to prepare for a disaster has been compressed. The situation has gotten remarkably worse over time. What inspires me today is to continue to harden the community and the organization and get them ready for the next decade.”