Sometimes the most important victories in the legislature are bills that are modified or defeated, rather than bills that are passed. Senate Bill 762 is one such example. This was the legislature’s primary wildfire bill for the 2021 session. It contains multiple potential areas for significant new restrictions and requirements for Oregon property owners, both urban and rural. It is a dangerous bill that will be used by some groups and legislators to achieve limits on Oregon property owners that have nothing to do with preventing wildfires or limiting the damage resulting from them. Fortunately, OPOA, working with legislators from both parties, was able to remove language from the bill that would have locked nearly every rural Oregon property owner into the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) for purposes of Oregon statute, where only the legislature could remove the designation. Inclusion in the WUI will result in new restrictions and significant new development requirements for Oregonians, making it critical that the maps are accurate and only contain areas where there is a mix (interface) of housing clusters (urban) and wildland fuels (wildland). Telling a farmer on 100-acres in Benton County that their property is “urban” and included in the WUI is silly, and locking that definition into statute is even worse. More than anything else, keeping this language out of statute was a huge win for Oregonians, and a defeat for the most ardent supporters of the bill, who used the wildfires as an excuse to achieve policy objectives that they would otherwise not be able to obtain.