By The Numbers: Property Owners File Thousands of Wildfire Map Appeals

The March 10 deadline for property owners to appeal their wildfire risk map designations has passed. As expected, the Oregon Department of Forestry received thousands of appeals from Oregon property owners of the hazard classification and WUI designation resulting from the maps. Here are the preliminary appeal numbers from ODF as of Wednesday:

Individual Appeal Forms Received: 2,148, with at least 4,000 more emails in the inbox, and a few boxes of mail to add. This should at least double the current appeals. 

County Appeals: In addition to the appeals filed by individual property owners, a number of counties appealed on behalf of their constituents. Baker, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Josephine, and Malheur Counties appealed on behalf of their constituents. Yamhill County, which has no high hazard properties, appealed on behalf of all their moderate classed tax lots.

Lawsuit: Harney and Grant Counties took the ultimate step, joining the OPOA Legal Center and a handful of property owners from counties across the state to file a lawsuit to invalidate the maps and appeal process in its entirety. This lawsuit applies to every property owner in every county across the state.

We applaud every County who submitted appeals for their constituents! It takes courage to fight state government.

As we’ve said before, our lawsuit is not a call to reject a strong Oregon wildfire program. In fact, our lawsuit is the exact opposite – Oregon needs a strong wildfire program, but both the 2022 and 2025 maps have so thoroughly tainted our program that they’ve taken Oregon a step backwards and destroyed the public trust that is needed to make a statewide program successful. This makes it harder for Oregon to build a funded and sustainable program that reduces wildfire risk and loss.

Putting an end to the map will make it much easier to create a state program that reduces wildfire risk, fully funds suppression efforts when a wildfire occurs, and builds trust with Oregonians living in areas at risk of wildfire. We don’t need to regulate property owners to build a great program.

The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not represent the opinions or positions of any party represented by the OPOA Legal Center on any particular matter.