Portland Fire Lt. Laurent Picard circled the tree-framed house in an old subdivision on the edge of Forest Park, examining whether the roof, siding, vents and vegetation could withstand an ember storm like the ones that played a major role in destroying whole neighborhoods in the Los Angeles wildfires.

Picard looked for any openings where airborne pieces of burning debris could get inside and told owners Allison Couch and Thomas Soals that wind-blown embers – not a racing wall of flames – present the top worry for spreading a devastating fire in and around the sprawling 5,200-acre park, the city’s crown jewel.

The couple’s house up a steep road from U.S. 30 has been their oasis for over four decades.

“I love living up here, but it makes me nervous, especially watching how all of the fires in California just jumped from home to home,” said Couch, a retired school principal. “You really think about that.”

The home assessments have become one of several key strategies to better prepare for what Portland fire officials say is an increasingly real possibility of a major wildfire in Forest Park, the city’s largest natural area and a top wildfire priority.

Fire risks in different portions of the park are rated “high” and “extreme.” The urban playground poses a particular challenge, fire officials say, given its immense size, remote, rugged trails and popularity – approximately 1 million visitors a year.

The park’s position on an east-facing slope and exposure to strong local winds that could fan fire growth, its limited water supply and restricted fire lane access also pose risks.

“We’ve been watching wildfires in California over the past two decades, but we’ve known with climate change, it’s coming here,” said Chris Barney, Portland Fire & Rescue deputy chief of emergency operations and in charge of wildland fire operations. “We realized this is going to impact Multnomah County and the city of Portland and we need to start thinking about it more.”

Though Portland Fire monitors wildfire risks in all of the city’s natural areas, it keeps an especially watchful eye on Forest Park.

Firefighters regularly patrol it during fire season, clear vegetation and check access points. They do a weekly update of a map detailing trails, fire lanes and roads that indicates which paths are safely passable by ATV, brush unit or by foot only. Parks workers and volunteers pitch in to clear debris and invasive plants.

Portland Fire’s wildfire education team also schedules as many home assessments as it can – about 1,000 over the past few years, with about 600 around Forest Park.

Still, Barney and other fire officials acknowledge vulnerabilities – far-outdated wildfire policies and limited know-how on coordinating and managing a complex, large-scale fire that could delay citywide emergency response.

Several policy documents reviewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive are more than 10 or even 20 years old, have redundant information and outdated phone numbers.

About 2,000 homes and 1,132 commercial buildings abut the park, dotting forested hillsides and jutting into the woods, a Portland Fire document dating to 2020 shows. The Japanese Garden, Oregon Zoo, Pittock Mansion and Hoyt Arboretum are among the iconic landmarks on the park’s fringes.

Several hundred storage tanks at the Critical Energy Infrastructure hub – the industrial area on the Willamette River just across U.S. 30 from the park – contain 90% of the liquid fuels for the entire state and most of the jet fuel for Portland International Airport. A Kinder-Morgan gas pipeline and multiple power lines also run through the park.

If a wildfire in Forest Park were to flare into adjacent neighborhoods, fire officials estimate its toll would be measured in tens of millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses and could lead to long-term erosion and landslides along U.S. 30.

A major wildfire in Portland once seemed inconceivable given the city’s wet springs and mild summers. And though fire officials have long flagged Forest Park as a place to protect, the threat of wildfires was low on the city’s priority list.

But that has changed as the region has grown hotter and drier.

“The 2017 Eagle Creek fire and the 2020 Labor Day wildfires in Oregon, those were kind of a wake-up call for the leadership of Portland Fire,” Barney said. The fires five years ago, spread by fierce winds off the Cascades, killed nine people, destroyed 5,000 homes and burned more than 1.2 million acres across the state.

Over the past decade, Portland’s beloved natural areas – nearly 90 of them citywide – and the homes and businesses on their edges have been identified in multiple city assessments as high risk for wildfires.

Natural areas are especially susceptible because their high concentrations of lush, virtually untouched vegetation can fuel an aggressive fire, their often steep terrain can accelerate fire spread and they have limited escape routes and little access for firefighters, said Kim Kosmas, a senior public education officer with Portland Fire.

Over the past decade, Portland Fire has responded to 7,932 brush, grass or wildland fires of all sizes across the city, officials said. The vast majority were ignited by people – caused by tossed cigarettes, for example; only 2.1% were categorized as “natural condition.”

That includes numerous small fires in Forest Park, most of them under an acre. Some were started by homeless people, others by a lightning strike and illegal use of fireworks, city records show.

Three large wildfires have burned in the area now known as Forest Park in the last 150 years – in 1889, 1940 and 1951 – each scorching several thousand acres. (Forest Park was formally established by the city in 1948.)

After the 1951 fire burned 1,200 acres inside the park and hundreds more acres on the perimeters, a city report criticized the slow start and meager response. It’s not clear how it ignited. Portland then launched wildfire training for city firefighters, established four fire lookouts, now defunct, to watch over the park and built fire lanes, numbered 1 through 15, for access and fire control lines.

The attention on Forest Park continues today. From late spring into fall, firefighters from two nearby stations patrol twice a week to get familiar with the park, evaluate access and assess current fire danger.

The crews carry chainsaws to remove low hanging branches and trees that have fallen across the fire lanes, Portland Fire documents show. They keep a log and send it to Portland Parks, which is responsible for park maintenance.

Portland Parks also assigns at least one ranger to Forest Park every day, year-round, city officials said.

The rangers are the park’s eyes and ears, investigating reports of fires and reporting them to fire officials and assisting firefighters with access to remote areas. They also ensure visitors comply with smoking, fireworks and camping bans and that hikers don’t park on dry grass or leaves to prevent a spark from cars starting a fire.

Portland Parks spokesperson Mark Ross said workers clear trees from roads and fire lanes year-round, prioritizing Leif Erickson Drive and Saltzman Road. The bureau also mows Leif Erickson and Saltzman before the fire season and brushes and mows fire lanes and park roads in early summer, he said.

Portland Fire keeps detailed operational strategies and broad policies that guide wildfire preparedness and response.

These encompass wildfire training, specialized equipment, staffing levels and skills and tactical plans, among others. They also outline how Portland firefighters can deploy to support wildfire fighting across the region and which other fire departments can help Portland if needed.

The city’s roughly 600 firefighters receive basic wildland firefighter training, Barney said. Portland also has a dedicated wildfire team of 50 firefighters who are trained at a higher level and regularly work on wildfires across Oregon and even California, he said.

“I feel very good with the plan we have now,” Barney said. “And we’re constantly revising it and constantly trying to make sure our people are prepared to utilize these skill sets and these tactics.”

But Barney and Deputy Chief Steve Bregman, who oversees Portland Fire’s wildland program, also said some of the bureau’s wildfire-related policies and documents are sorely out of date due to staffing and budget challenges. They also said the bureau lacks training in emergency coordination.

That could delay efficient citywide incident response, including emergency alerts and warnings, evacuation efforts, requests for help and mass sheltering, Barney said.

“We haven’t, as an organization, had a lot of capacity to maintain our policies with the currency that they should have,” he said.

That includes an emergency response plan for wildfires in the city from 2002. It establishes the operational responsibilities of different city bureaus, departments, the municipal government and other supporting agencies, guiding the emergency response to a large wildfire.

The 137-page plan, required per city code, includes outdated names, nonexistent phone numbers, old maps and obsolete roles for city departments and agencies that have changed significantly over the years.

Portland Fire officials said they have been advocating for several years to move the plan from Portland Fire to the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, which already houses similar response plans for other natural disasters.

“If you have to do evacuation planning or alert warning planning, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a flood, a fire or an earthquake, the overarching planning for those big disasters should all be the same,” Bregman said.

Emergency Management spokesperson Jaymee Cuti said the bureau is “aware of Portland Fire & Rescue’s interest in transferring this plan.” But, Cuti said there’s been no funding to undertake the city code and plan update.

Barney said a newly hired wildfire planning manager, who started earlier this month, will assist with policy development and updates, grant applications and other related efforts.

Fire officials also said the policies don’t reflect myriad changes they have made in the wake of Oregon and California’s devastating fires.

Those include an annual planning cycle, with firefighters meeting every fall to analyze the previous fire season and prepare for the next one. Fire officials are also regularly meeting with other fire departments and officials at county and regional levels to plan their response.

They have increased the rate of sending their wildland-trained firefighters to other parts of the state “so we can gain the knowledge and training to bring back to our community when the problem comes here,” Barney said.

Multnomah and four neighboring counties – Clackamas, Washington, Columbia and Clark – recently each bought a one-mile-long fire hose kits (which consist of many lengths of 100 feet hose of different diameters and fittings) that could be used in natural areas with poor access – the five hoses can be connected or used independently throughout a large fire, he said.

Portland Fire also receives notifications from an artificial intelligence camera network recently installed by Portland General Electric, which has transmission lines running through the park. The fire detection cameras provide round-the-clock, real-time observations and nighttime infrared readings of portions of PGE’s service area in the park and can alert the utility and authorities to active smoke within a 10-mile radius.

The cameras, installed on transmission towers, can’t zoom in to capture distinguishable human faces; they pixilate residences and don’t record audio.

The utility also trims vegetation within its Forest Park rights-of-way and monitors a weather station at the southern end of the park.

ONE FIRE HYDRANT

Still, challenges abound, fire officials said. An increase in homeless people living in Forest Park has led to more fires. When red flag fire warnings are issued in summer, firefighters and the county’s Joint Office of Homeless Services have had to remove campers from the park due to the heightened risk.

There’s only one fire hydrant in the park, installed in 1969, at the intersection of Waterline Road and Leif Erikson Drive trails. And it’s unlikely to serve “in any significant capacity” in the case of a catastrophic fire, Bregman said.

That’s partly because the focus would be on protecting homes and businesses around the park, he said, hence firefighters would rely on fire hydrants at the park’s edges as well as on the city’s three 3,000-gallon water trucks shuttling water from sources near the park, including community pools and boat launch sites, Bregman said.

In any case, he said, fire hydrants aren’t designed for major urban conflagrations because water pressure drops precipitously when firefighters draw from many hydrants at the same time – a problem in the recent fires in Los Angeles. Adding more hydrants in the park has been discussed but found to be prohibitively expensive and disruptive, he said.

Two homeowner associations in the West Hills also maintain their own wildfire sprinkler systems, which could spray water into gullies or areas of dense vegetation that snake in between the homes on the west side of Skyline Boulevard, fire officials said.

Planes dumping water on a park fire could also refill in the nearby Willamette River, Bregman said.

Portland Fire has discussed widening the fire lanes, Barney said, but – much like with the hydrants – the costs and disturbance to the park would prove high, especially as some lanes are so steep that, even when widened, couldn’t accommodate an ATV or other vehicle.

The city also partnered with the nonprofit Forest Park Conservancy, which helps maintain the park’s trails, to reach out to homeowners in the Linnton neighborhood and educate them about how to prepare their homes to withstand a wildfire.

Later this summer, the county and city will roll out new evacuation software that sends out location-based notifications using data fed in by local authorities and has proven successful in alerting residents during California’s recent wildfires.

DO THE MATH

The fire and parks bureaus have also focused on removing invasive species in a 500-acre area of the park adjacent to the Linnton and Springville neighborhoods, with help from a $430,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Invasive plants can cause fire to spread into the tree canopy.

However, a chorus of researchers and advocates increasingly say that a focus on eliminating invasive species in a natural area isn’t likely to save many homes.

“In Forest Park, which is huge, what’s our ability to reduce the vegetation, not just at one point in time, but over space and time? It will regrow,” said Ralph Bloemers, director of Green Oregon, a nonprofit that seeks to educate Oregonians about fire and how to live with it.

Recent scientific studies and analysis of post-wildfire landscapes have shown that cities and their residents must shift focus to preventing homes from catching on fire, Bloemers said.

Bloemers, who also is executive producer of the documentary “Elemental: Redefining our Relationship with Wildfire,” has spent the past few years studying burnt landscapes, interviewing scientists and embedding with firefighters in the recent California fires.

Hardening Portland homes against wildfire is pivotal, he said, given the city has only 600 firefighters for roughly 300,000 homes. Portland fire officials typically send two dozen firefighters to each burning home. If 10 homes are burning, 240 firefighters are needed.

“You do the math,” Bloemers said. “The public thinks that firefighters have the capacity and the water resources to battle any kind of a blaze. That’s just not the case.”

Bregman echoed that sentiment.

He said he tells homeowners near the park who want airtight assurances: “The only way we can guarantee that you’re going to be protected from a fire inside the park extending to your home is if we get rid of the park, if we concrete it all and take away all the vegetation.”

“We need people to prepare their homes to reduce the chances that their homes will ignite,” he said.

Bloemers said he’d like to help start a community fire brigade in Portland to help respond to large wildfires. Such brigades in California help educate communities and mop up after fires.

And he said Portland needs a source of money akin to the city’s clean energy fund focused on wildfire preparedness and resilience. The city of Marin in California passed a local property tax that enables the city to help those who can’t afford to fire-proof their homes.

The idea, Bloemers said, isn’t to fear wildfires – an integral part of the natural landscape – but to learn how to better live with them.

At the home above U.S. 30 on the edge of Forest Park, Lt. Picard praised the gravel buffer zone around the house and the wildfire-ready design, including a metal roof, aluminum siding, double-paned windows and the yard’s neatly trimmed lawn.

But he also pointed out the need for smaller-gauge screening on the home’s vents to keep out embers and urged the couple to move anything flammable, including the welcome mat, prayer flags and a plastic trash bin, away from the home.

He also suggested they trim old vines and shrubs and consider cutting back laurel bushes because they could become “ladders” for fire to climb tall trees nearby.

Couch, the homeowner, said she planned to follow through.

“Every year through August, we hold our breath,” she saied

How to get a house assessment

Portland Fire recommends all homeowners within the city’s wildfire hazard areas get a free home wildfire assessment. Check PortlandMaps to verify you’re in a hazard zone. Fill out a request form online, email belmontfire@portlandoregon.gov or leave a message at 503-823-3741 to schedule an assessment.

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