Oregonians who live in the state’s highest-risk wildfire zones will be subject to stricter building codes and requirements under a new hazard map released Tuesday by state fire officials.
The yearslong process to produce a map that designates every part of Oregon as low, moderate or high risk of wildfires came about following the historic 2020 Labor Day wildfires that killed nine and destroyed thousands of homes.
All 1.9 million tax lots statewide were assessed, and of those, roughly 106,000, or 6% of the state, will be subject to rules that require creating defensible space or using fire-resistant building materials due to a high wildfire risk and location within the wildland-urban interface.
The highest concentration of high risk wildfire zones are located in Oregon’s southwest, central and eastern areas, according to the map.
In northwest Oregon, most of the Willamette Valley is classified as low risk while the edges of the valley and Coast Range mountains to the coast are largely moderate risk. The more forested Cascade Foothills and up to the Cascade Range give way to high risk — an area that’s historically had more frequent wildfire.