\u201cIt\u2019s a very worrying trend,\u201d said Larry O\u2019Neill, Oregon\u2019s state climatologist. \u201cBecause it was so warm, our snowpack just really failed to build. Snowpack functionally acts as a reservoir for water. Basically, our largest reservoir of water is nearly empty at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A drought in 2015 nearly emptied Detroit Lake, a reservoir between Bend and Salem. State climatologist Larry O’Neill draws similarities between this year and 2015 after Oregon’s warm and dry start to 2026.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of David Reinert \/ Oregon State University<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill, an associate professor at Oregon State University, is also a member of the state\u2019s Drought Readiness Council and Water Supply Availability Committee. By early March, several counties had already requested support from the Readiness Council to receive additional funding and aid for the summer.<\/p>\n
Under the recommendation and guidance of these two committees, Gov. Tina Kotek signed an executive order<\/a> on March 31 declaring drought emergencies in three eastern Oregon counties and clearing the way for extra state support. Her order was months earlier than the first drought declarations in 2024 or 2025. <\/p>\n Prolonged drought can lower water levels and make waterways warmer, negatively affecting native cold-water fish including trout, salmon and steelhead, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife<\/a>. Warmer waterways especially can make species more vulnerable to disease and decreased oxygen levels.<\/p>\n These impacts on fisheries can be long-lasting, O\u2019Neill said, pointing to drought conditions in 2015. According to an Oregon State University article<\/a>, it took the most resilient species nearly two years to return to pre-drought conditions. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you want a bad wildfire season, you start with a bad snowpack, and so right now, we can\u2019t predict exactly what it\u2019ll be like in the summer. But if we have a dry spring, the bad snowpack then the dry spring will really kind of put the nail in that coffin,\u201d O\u2019Neill said. \u201cI\u2019m increasingly concerned that this will end up rivaling 2015 as the warmest calendar year on record in Oregon.\u201d<\/p>\n These warm and dry conditions outlined in the NOAA spring outlook<\/a> can make an extreme impact on wildfire risk, O\u2019Neill added. While he noted that a rainy spring can help lower the risk of an extreme wildfire season, the current NOAA outlook continues the dry trend. This means that the wildfire season can start earlier and be more extreme, O\u2019Neill warned. <\/p>\n \u201cAll the information we have at hand at this moment, that seems to be a more likely outcome is that the wildfire season could be more active and a lot of the fire agencies are starting to prepare for that right now,\u201d O\u2019Neill said.<\/p>\n State agencies, industries prepare<\/p>\n The Oregon State Fire Marshal responds to wildfires year-round, though the agency also puts a special emphasis on preparedness and management for homeowners in advance of the fire season.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a two-pronged approach,\u201d said John Hendricks, the office\u2019s public affairs specialist. \u201cWe work on the suppression side when wildfires may impact the community or critical infrastructure, and then we work in the area of defensible space and getting communities and homeowners prepared to reduce that risk to their home and property.\u201d<\/p>\n While weather outlooks can be somewhat unpredictable several months in advance, Hendricks said that early spring is the time the agency looks to build defensible space \u2014 or a buffer zone between vegetation and buildings to help slow potential wildfire spread. <\/p>\n \u201cJust the simple act of getting up on the roof and cleaning off any pine needles or cleaning up the gutters,\u201d Hendricks said. \u201cEach one of those projects is going to help reduce your home\u2019s risk to damage or loss because of wildfire.\u201d<\/p>\n For local fire agencies, the office offers a grant program, made possible by a 2021 law <\/a>creating policies to reduce wildfire risk. The grant gives local departments $35,ooo grants to build their personnel and capacity heading into fire season. <\/p>\n \u201c$35,000 doesn\u2019t sound like a lot, but it does so much for these communities. One of the benefits of it is that it provides staff on duty to respond to wildfires, but they can also respond to other calls as well,\u201d Hendricks said.<\/p>\n Aid doesn\u2019t only come from the state government. The Oregon Cattleman\u2019s Association, a trade association that represents ranchers, offers a Wildfire Assistance fund to help members and non-members alike with wildfire recovery. <\/p>\n Association President Diana Wirth said many ranchers feel prepared to handle varying weather conditions because of their longtime work and understanding of the land they use. <\/p>\n \u201cRanchers here are pretty ready to deal with those issues, because we\u2019ve dealt with them before.\u201d Wirth said. \u201cWhen it comes to mitigating disasters, ranchers are fairly prepared to take care of themselves, because we\u2019re an independent demographic, and we\u2019re used to working on land. We\u2019re used to taking care of our resources and stewarding it in a manner that\u2019s responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of these resilience strategies that Wirth outlined to reduce drought and wildfire risk include livestock grazing to reduce the fuel load.<\/p>\n For drought mitigation, the focus is on riparian zones, or vegetated areas alongside waterways.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re already making plans on how to protect our riparian zones. That\u2019s something just common knowledge throughout our industry,\u201d Wirth said. \u201cProtecting your riparian zones when water resources get down is really probably one of the singularly most important things a rancher can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking toward the summer, Hendricks shared an additional fire safety tip to prevent human-caused fires. Debris burning is the leading cause of wildfire, he said, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to fire regulations and conditions when spending time outside.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to take all of us, within the state, to do our part as we deal with more and more fires each summer,\u201d Hendricks concluded. \u201c(We) often say that Mother Nature sometimes gives us enough for us to handle, and we don\u2019t need our fellow humans doing the same thing and contributing to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and Bluesky.<\/p>\n This republished story<\/a> is part of OPB\u2019s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org\/partnerships<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades is known for its seemingly constant rain, much of Oregon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79,252788],"class_list":["post-574711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-weather-drought-wildfires-oregon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}