Fire districts expand use of drones, cameras for early detection

Presenter:  Outdoor burning ends, as fire officials see widespread drought across the West and expect an early start to our fire season. At the commissioner meeting in mid-May, Lane County Policy Director Steve Adams:

Steve Adams (Lane County, policy director): It’s my great pleasure to introduce you to this panel. First and foremost, my colleague Monica Larcom is our newly-appointed emergency manager. 

We looked and interviewed candidates from around the country for the post, and we found Ms. Larcom in our own Lane County Sheriff’s Office where she has been working on search and rescue. It’s a real honor to be working with her.

So joining Ms. Larcom today are two esteemed colleagues. First, my colleague Chris Cline, who is the district forester with the Oregon Department of Forestry. We’ve been working with Mr. Cline for some months now on a range of issues.

And today we’re going to hear a little bit about fire protection. I’m also joined by Chief Wallace, of the Mohawk Fire District, but he’s also the chair of the Lane Rural Fire Protection Board here, as well. So this panel is going to brief you on the fire season as it is shaping up and to answer any questions.

Presenter: Lane County Emergency Manager Monica Larcom:

Monica Larcom (Lane County, emergency manager): I am very pleased to have accepted the position as emergency manager for Lane County.

In my time with the Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue, my position was partially funded and occupied by carrying out Title III Community Wildfire Protection Program projects. 

And during the course of that, I’ve had ample opportunity to work with many of our partners in-county and throughout the state. I’m looking forward to strengthening my preexisting relationships and meeting more of our partners as I continue in this role and building a resilient network of relationships and connections that will help our county grow, in its prosperity on sunny days, and hopefully its strength on the stormy days.

During my last, the last year and a half or so, I developed and finalized the Genasys evacuation tool given to us by ODHS (or Oregon Department of Human Services) through the Office of Resilience and Emergency Management to develop evacuation zones for the entire county. 

And through that process I worked with partners at the Sheriff’s Office, Eugene Emergency Management, Eugene Springfield Fire, the Fire Defense Board members, ODF, U.S. Forest Service, and other police departments and private shareholders.

And so I endeavored to use their expertise to help better prepare for emergency alerts and evacuations throughout the county. 

During my time here at Lane County, I’ve been involved with the evacuation process for several fires, including the Bedrock Fire, the Lookout Fire, the Chalk Fire, the Horse Heaven Fire, the Horse Creek Fire, the Lane 1 Fire, and then also the Linton Creek evacuations through The (Three) Sisters Wilderness that we did two years ago as well.

Last summer was a welcome reprieve from the new normal that we’ve seen since 2019. We had no full EOC activations with emergency management related to fires. 

However, with the Sheriff’s Office, there were smaller-scale evacuations and notifications that took place for emergent fires that thankfully did not necessitate EOC activation.

However, between 2020 and 2024, Lane County has had a minimum of one complex Incident Management Team (IMT) here, with 2024 breaking our internal record of having four complex IMTs present and/or working with Lane County for fires at the same time.

I say this to illustrate that in the past, Oregon has blessedly been able to pass through natural disasters with fewer state and local level support systems to deal with the influx of damage, necessitating response, recovery, and mitigation. But it doesn’t really seem like we are the exception to that rule anymore.

Many other states, especially in the Midwest and East Coast, are used to dealing with disasters on an annual basis, and if not multiple disasters annually.  Oregon as a whole is in a position of needing to establish better state- and county-level measures and support for disaster recovery that many states already consider a ubiquitous system already in place.

As I enter into this position, I’m committed to ensuring that we have a robust system for emergency notifications and a partner network that is prepared to respond to fulfill functions in emergency response and support, and also to continue to develop programs and pathways that help us as a county recover from disasters and become more resilient to future ones.

And with that, I will turn the presentation over to my colleagues Chief Wallace and Chris Cline with ODF.

Presenter: Chris Cline:

Chris Cline: I’m responsible for Eastern Lane County and my colleague Ole Buch out of Veneta on the west side of the county wanted to be here today, but was unable due to other commitments. So you get me today for the entire county, But the message is uniform.

A historical perspective—because to me it’s important to know what we’ve come out of, so that we can use it in comparison to what’s ahead of us.

You will all probably remember what we had in 2024, right? We had the Lane 1 Fire. We had multiple fires along the crest, complex fire situations. It was a very detrimental fire season for Lane County, and that was without drought.

So we look ahead to 2025. The drought is creeping back into the area, yet we didn’t have as big of an issue, and so I think the story has to do with available resources and then the type of fire starts that we may or may not receive. 

In 2024, we had a lightning storm come through in the middle of July, relatively dry, a lot of new fire starts. Simultaneously across the Pacific Northwest, there were many, many fires going, especially in Oregon, central Oregon. And so there was a real draw on the resources.

Last year, the lightning that we got, it did have a little bit of moisture with it, and just a little bit will help us to get to those fires before they start to take off. And there were less fires regionally, in the Pacific Northwest. 

And so just that raw snapshot of a picture doesn’t always paint the full story. There’s more behind it.

Presenter: So what does the season ahead hold for us? From the Oregon Department of Forestry (East Lane), Chris Cline:

Chris Cline: The weather’s a bit of a concern. Actually, it went from no drought in ‘24 when we had a significant amount of fires, more drought in ’25, and then significant drought now showing across Oregon.

So there is plenty of concern, I think, for the year ahead of us. We look at as professionals, we’re looking at the water equivalency here locally, 5% of normal. That is a drastic number.

But I think what’s even more telling, and then back to my story of what happened in 2024, is this goes all across the Western U.S., right? So this is showing clear out to the High Plains, Nebraska—very, very drastically, low water conditions. 

And so this may, very well play into that ‘how many resources are available,’ right? And the fire season usually starts in the south, works its way west, it works its way west across the state.

So by the time it finally gets to us, there may be already a very severe strain on the resources at a national level so that that can play into what we have going on locally. 

Some long range forecasting: It doesn’t look good. Looking at June, July, and August, it looks for again, above-normal temperatures, below, below-normal precipitation. September into October, just hot, more so than normal, and dryer.

Presenter: From the Mohawk Valley Fire District, Chief Steven Wallace:

Steven Wallace (Mohawk Valley Fire District, chief): . We are definitely prepared for this fire season. We’ve kind of been watching it all winter long, known kind of what’s coming and we’re already starting to see fires on the landscape already, through backyard burns and things like that.

Our agency actually had one that was about two-tenths of an acre, by the time we got it stopped. That was from a backyard burn. Good news is, OSFM (Oregon State Fire Marshal) is continuing to assist us with the wildfire crisis.

There’s 31-ish fire districts and agencies in the county. When you take into account IGAs and mergers and contracts, there’s about 16 to 17 responding fire agencies within Lane County from the coast up to the Cascades. And 10 out of those agencies in Lane County did receive the wildfire upstaffing grant this year. 

So 10 fire agencies received an additional $35,000 from the State Fire Marshals to upstaff over fire season.  So there will be an increase in staffing again, this fire season. 

You know, we didn’t have those major fires that we had the year before, but we did have a lot of fire starts. And I think our success there was the cooperation that we have with our neighbors, the Department of Forestry, the structural side, the rural fire districts.

We really strengthened those relationships between each other and come to realize, you know, fire knows no boundaries. They don’t understand where the lines are on the map, and neither should we. 

So it doesn’t matter where the fire starts—the districts, the Department of Forestry—we’re going to throw what we can at it to keep these fires small, because ultimately that is where we’re going to get our greatest success. 

We’re not going to be able to prevent all of them, but keeping ’em small when we can is going to give us the best window for success.

Presenter: From the Oregon Department of Forestry, Chris Cline. 

Chris Cline: Thank you, Chief. I’m about to close out my 38th year in the business. I have fought fire and been a part of emergency services across this nation in various places, in Canada.

And we are very fortunate in Lane County, not just from the local agencies, emergency management, but also with the support from the county commissioners. I know Commissioner Buch, we have worked very diligently together over the years with some of the major wildfires on the east side of the county. So always felt really fully supported and so I appreciate that.

The fire season will most likely arrive early. Historically we’ve gone into fire season probably the fourth week of June, just the very start of July. Along with that, I put down here reductions in length of burn season. My reference there was to just outdoor burning across Lane County regulated by LRAPA.

And then, another new one, the high elevations will come into prescription earlier. And prescription is when it will come to a state that it would readily carry fire. That’s a term often used for prescribed burning, but it also applies to a wildfire. The fuels coming into prescription, coming into a ready state where they can combust.

So there should be a snowbank on top of the fuels right now, the logs, the twigs, the brush. But they are being fully exposed to the sun’s radiation right now and drying. And again, that’s probably a month and a half ahead of normal. So it just brings more of the county online and puts more of the county at risk at a much earlier calendar date.

So what can we do about it, right? There’s a lot of good evidence to show that there’s a lot of potential there and I think good preparation of both the ODF districts in Lane County are expecting good staffing with a decent return of seasonal employees. That’s very important.

We still have a large number of our employees or seasonal in nature. It’s hard to keep those folks around. We work really hard to keep them employed in the wintertime, through various grant programs and fuels reductions around our communities. And so that’s been very successful and we have a good return rate this year.

We have a solid complement of fire engines, tenders, dozers, and contractors that we can, reach out to beyond our own equipment, reliable relationships with Lane County Emergency Services and the fire departments. And those relationships are solid and just continuously being tended to, large landowners are engaged and prepared.

You know, firefighting started in the state of Oregon actually in 1904, right In this gentleman’s fire district, with Booth-Kelly Lumber Company. And that is the rich history to Oregon Department of Forestry.

And so those landowners are still engaged, the lots of equipment, we meet with them monthly. We go over fire plans and so the landowner communities around here are very engaged and prepared as well. That’s back in play this year.

Weyerhaeuser is very involved (Weyerhaeuser Corporation), matter of fact, they have purchased several other helicopters for firefighting, may or may not be online this year, but, several Type 1—the largest helicopters. They’ve gone out and purchased some, so there are various landowners, not just Weyerhaeuser, but are very committed to the local fire protection as well.

And so there’s a Type 1 helicopter with a contract that’ll be based out of the Creswell Airport again this year as it was last year. And it was a very, very effective tool for us. 

At the state of Oregon Department of Forestry, we have 56 total aircraft platforms available to us for our day-to-day operations. Thirty of those are unmanned aircraft, so drones with thermal imaging and cameras and mapping capabilities. We have several on our district, local, in Lane County.

It’s about good detection and a fast response. There’s a drone that we have, our pilot lives and works up the McKenzie, Jason Wickizer. We had a storm come through, we lift up, take a look around. There was a fire, happened to be on Forest Service. We reported it to them. They went and snuffed it out, and it’s just, doesn’t even have a name. It’s a number, right?

And that’s exactly what we want to do and that’s why we have such a robust fleet of aircraft. And we’re trying to stay on the forefront of the technology to find these fires. Minutes matter in our game. And the sooner we can get there, the sooner that we can find them, locate them, jump on top of them, then the better off it is for everybody.

Brand-new this year, ODF is bringing on board a Twin Otter. It’s a multi-mission aircraft. It can do personnel and cargo transports, as well as used for initial attack. That’s the primary purpose. and long-range fast lightning detection and large fire-scale mapping. It’s a very, very effective tool.

Again, we want to find these things and put ’em out when they’re just a single dot. And so as soon as they can safely get in behind a storm, they track in behind it and it’s a quick platform, long-range-time flying, very, very good tool.

And I think finally I would end with the, probably the detection system that we have. It’s not just aerial, but also there’s been a real push over the years, to increase the mountaintop, visual coverage.

Those are Oregon Department of Forestry-owned cameras. There’s also ALERTWest with U of O Hazards Lab, Forest Service BLM, Pano AI with Washington DNR and our Oregon-based utilities.

And it’s, again, as this technology emerges, Department of Forestry just based on some, maybe some good fortune, we got into this several decades ago at the incipient stage. And lots of other entities have jumped on board, over the last five to 10 years. And there’s a very, very robust network of cameras, a very useful tool.

Presenter: Mohawk Fire Chief Steven Wallace:

Steven Wallace (Mohawk Valley Fire District, chief): Just to add to the aircraft (just so you guys know, commissioners): A couple of the rural fire districts were also awarded drones this year through the SPIRE (State Preparedness and Incident Response Equipment) program through the state of Oregon.

My agency and Upper McKenzie agency also has some of those drones with thermal imaging capabilities. And thanks to that, we can go out after storms and look for fires. 

So those are also available in the county this year and available to all agencies to request if they need ’em. So there’s additional aircraft there as well.

Presenter: Commissioner David Loveall:

Commissioner David Loveall: Thank you Chief and Mr. Cline. I think the statement you made about the cameras, I think kind of dispels the rumors that we’ve been hearing over the last number of years where people are saying, you know: ‘Why is it the federal government will wait till a burn gets to 1,000 acres before they make a move?’ So this is really quelling the public’s rumor mill… 

We are making early moves, early intervention, and really attacking fires when they start, which used to be the old days when the loggers were out there, they’d drop the chainsaws, get in the truck, and they’d go out and put fires out. 

So I appreciate that statement that the public knows that we’re on it and we’re going to continue to be on it, so thank you for that.

Presenter: Lane County welcomes new Emergency Manager Monica Larcom, as commissioners hear that with spreading drought and low snowpack this winter, our fire season could start in June.  Outdoor burning in Lane County ends at 6 p.m. today, May 31 (2026).