More prescribed-burn smoke on the horizon?
Deschutes County is asking the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to be allowed to create more smoke during prescribed burns.
The county believes allowing higher smoke-concentrated prescribed burns will help prevent a catastrophic wildfire. It also means the potential for more smoke coming into urban areas. like downtown Bend.
“Having a controlled environment at an announced time — ‘tomorrow night this is going to happen, please stay indoors if you have asthma’ — is going to be a much better condition than having just a wildfire at the edge of town at the dead of summer and having thick smoke,” county Commissioner Tony DeBone said Monday.
DeBone said the county has been in talks with DEQ officials about just how much more smoke they can allow during a prescribed burn.
“The idea is that it goes above healthy conditions a period of time within a day, a 24-hour period,” DeBone said.
That could affect those with health problems, which is why even supporters of prescribed burns are a little concerned.
“It’s proper for the officials to go slow on this, and to exceed their standards as little as possible for folks,” said Paul Dewey, executive director of Central Oregon LandWatch.
DeBone said believes the reward is greater than the risk, because it’s controlled. His example, the Pole Creek Fire near Sisters two years ago.
“Being able to control when, announce to citizens when there may be a little more smoke in the air, is a lot better than having a large forest fire that just takes off uncontrollably, just like we saw (near) downtown Sisters,” DeBone said.
Although the plan is to prevent a potential catastrophe, Dewey doesn’t believe a prescribed burn can completely eliminate that.
“Given that the climate change, and the greater intensity of fires that we’re having, I would hate for people to believe that prescribed fire alone is going to solve the problem, because it’s not,” Dewey said.
As of now, the Oregon DEQ has not responded to the county’s request to increase smoke during prescribed burns, and there’s no word on when a decision will be made.
