NW Bend residents fear dead trees bring fire hazard

In the thick of fire season, trees left behind after being taken down on the northwest side of Bend, just off O.B. Riley Road, are creating a fire hazard, worried neighbors say.

“It’s a lot of dry wood,” Bend resident Erich Lieberkenecht said Monday. “It’s super-hot out here. It’s a certain risk that we have here in the neighborhood.”

Construction for a housing development began by clearing those trees to make room for the new homes.

The first order of business was to pipe a canal running through the property. Now, the contractors are waiting on a grading permit, which is needed to clear trees more than 8 inches in diameter.​

They applied for a permit on Feb. 17 of this year and had it approved a week later, but only for a small part of the lot. They applied late last year for a grading permit for the rest of the property, but said they have not heard back from the city yet.

The city said the review process is long for this larger plot of land; they have to review infrastructure plans and other minute details.

In the meantime, the dry, dead wood is ripe fire fuel. Not helping matters are the dried brush and cheatgrass on the site.

Nearby residents are concerned.

“It was all of our thoughts that they would just continue on and clean up,” Carol Adams said. “And then, all of a sudden, everything halted. There’s been no movement and nothing happening, and that is our frustration.”

“This amount of firewood laying around has a severe risk for the neighborhood,” Lieberkenecht said. “It’s super-close to our houses. We have a lot of trees that are dry.”

That is, residents say, thanks to the removal of the irrigation canal.

“They’re dying because that canal is gone now,” nearby resident Nathalie Nieman said. “And so they were living off that water, and now it’s just drying up.”

The Realtor who’s sold most of the homes around the site is frustrated. The one house she cannot sell is adjacent to the wood piles — she attributes her failure to sell it to the eyesore.

The construction plans are finished, and once the trees do get cleared, construction can begin. The contractors expect the permits to be approved within two weeks.