Harder–Narasimhan structures via stability conditions on fibers

County, state, and local jurisdictions have established building codes that help reduce the fire risk in wildland urban interface areas. These codes apply to new development, dwellings and structures, retrofitting, and siting. Some of the fire mitigation standards covered by the existing codes include:

• Locating in a fire protection district or ensuring fire protection through contract;

• Identification of water supply;

• Provision of adequate road access;

• Establishing fire breaks;

• Meeting slope/grade requirements;

• Using fire retardant roofs in wildfire hazard zones; and

• Installing spark arresters on chimneys.

Additionally, many jurisdictions in Washington County administer and enforce the Oregon Fire Code. Oregon Fire Code “Fire Code Applications Guide” was prepared to provide good faith guidance to building officials, contractors, business owners, the public, and fire marshals on local interpretations and practices that are considered to be in compliance with the Oregon Fire Code.

4.9.2 Oregon Department of Forestry

The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) is active in the Washington Fire Defense Board and assists local fire departments through mutual aid agreements and by providing wildland firefighting training. Trainees can obtain their red card (wildland fire training documentation) and attend extensive workshops combining elements of structural and wildland firefighting, defending homes, and operations experience.

ODF has been involved with emergency managers to provide support during non-fire events and, for years, ODF has worked with industrial partners (big timber companies) to share equipment in the case of extremely large fires.

4.9.3 Washington County Fire Defense Board

The Washington County Fire Defense Board is comprised of all the local fire chiefs within the County and also includes ex-officio representatives from the State Fire Marshal’s Office and the Oregon Department of Forestry. Pursuant to the Oregon Fire Service Mobilization Plan, the Fire Defense Board is charged with the following responsibilities:

• Develop a fire service plan with provisions permitting local departments to respond with mutual aid forces upon request of other local departments in the County.

• Administer the State Fire Mobilization Plan within the County.

• Maintain response procedures for alert, transfer, and dispatch of fire fighting equipment and personnel.

• Maintain liaison with other agencies capable of augmenting firefighting resources.

• Maintain inventories of fire fighting equipment in the County.

• Develop dispatch plans for mobilization requests and conduct exercises as necessary to ensure efficient operations.

• Develop expedient procedures for providing and dispatching incident command overhead teams and logistical support.

• Hold regular meetings.

The Washington County Fire Defense Board meets regularly with representatives from a number of other agencies in the County to coordinate prevention and response activities and issues. Those agencies/individuals include the Metro West Ambulance, the Washington County

Medical Services Coordinator, Washington County Emergency Management, and the Washington County Building Services Division.

4.9.4 Homeowner Wildfire Awareness Contest

The Oregon Department of Forestry and numerous other supporters are sponsoring a pilot program to raise public awareness about wildfire hazards around the home and what homeowners can do to provide protection for their property by creating survivable space. The 2007 pilot program was a contest targeting homeowners in Washington County wildland urban interface. The winner of the contest received a complete safety makeover outside their home to make it as wildfire survivable as possible. A 30-minute television broadcast of the project from start to finish was aired on local stations to provide additional wildfire awareness to the entire community.

4.9.5 Public Education Programs

Many of the county’s fire departments and agencies are actively working on public education and homeowner responsibility by visiting neighborhoods and explaining hazards to citizens.

Oftentimes, they hand deliver informative brochures and encourage citizens to clearly mark their address on the roadway to ensure more rapid and accurate response to calls and better access.

The Firewise and FireFree Programs are also being cited to help fire response organizations communicate fire hazards to the public.

Chapter 5 5 Treatment Recommendations

Critical to implementation of this Community Wildfire Protection Plan are the identification and implementation of an integrated schedule of treatments targeted at achieving a reduction in the number of human caused fires and the impact of wildland fires on Washington County. This section of the plan identifies and prioritizes potential mitigation actions, including treatments, that can be implemented in the County to pursue that goal. As there are many land management agencies and thousands of private landowners in Washington County, it is reasonable to expect that differing schedules of adoption will be made and varying degrees of compliance will be observed across all ownerships.

The land management agencies in Washington County, including the Oregon Department of Forestry, are participants in the planning process and have contributed to its development.

Where available, their schedule of land treatments has been considered in the planning process to improve the correlation between their identified planning efforts and the efforts of Washington County.

Washington County encourages the building of disaster resistance in normal day-to-day operations. By implementing plan activities through existing programs and resources, the cost of mitigation is often a small portion of the overall cost of a project’s design or program.

All risk assessments were made based on the conditions existing during 2006. Thus, the recommendations in this section have been made in light of those conditions. However, the components of risk and the preparedness of the County’s resources are not static. It will be necessary to fine-tune this plan’s recommendations regularly to adjust for changes in the components of risk, population density changes, infrastructure modifications, and other factors.