A helicopter carries water to fire behind a ranch near Ukiah as part of the effort against the Battle Mountain Complex of blazes in Umatilla County. About 75% of the acres scorched in this year’s wildfire season were in grass and shrub lands, mostly in southern and eastern Oregon. (Courtesy of Northwest Interagency Coordination Center)
For the last 30 years, shrub and grass fires have burned far more acres and destroyed more property in the West than forest fires, and the same was true this season.
Still, Republicans in the U.S. House – including Oregon’s two Republican representatives – are hoping Congress will pass a bill before year’s end that would tackle increasingly large wildfires in the West by scaling back environmental regulations to make it easier to log and cut vegetation in federal forests, which account for more than 60% of the forests in Oregon.
Proposed by Arkansas Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman and California Democrat Rep. Scott Peters, the “ Fix Our Forests Act ” passed the U.S. House on Sept. 24 with 268 representatives in favor and 151 opposed, including Oregon’s four Democratic representatives. It is expected to get a vote in the U.S. Senate after the November general election, according to Hank Stern, a spokesperson for Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat.