A stump burns as a firefighter works on a prescribed fire near the Metolius River.

If the rain and cooler temperatures didn’t signal it for you, the Oregon Department of Forestry recently officially declared an end to fire season.

Wildfires could still happen. Most of the risk for this year is gone.

“More than 800,000 acres burned in wildfires this year,” the department says. That’s less than in 2020, but we are still beating the 10 year average. The majority of the acreage was consumed in just one fire, the 413,717-acre Bootleg Fire.

Doug Grafe is Oregon’s new state wildfire programs director, working in the governor’s office. It’s a new position created by the Legislature to have one person thinking about wildfires, wildfire risk and prevention in Oregon full-time.

What is he already thinking? Bigger prescribed burns.

“I would emphasize, however, in Oregon we are fortunate that we do have prescribed burns on about 200,000 acres on an annual basis,” he told the Oregon Capital Chronicle. “And compared to other western states, that’s aggressive…. Is it where we need it to be? No. And scalability is a critical question. We’re doing prescribed burns now that are 100 acres or 1,000 acres. Really, to have significant impact across jurisdictions, private lands and federal lands, it’d be great if we can push those out to 5,000 acres, 10,000 acres in the future.”

That should mean more smoke from prescribed burns and less uncontrolled smoke from wildfires. Is that the right approach for Oregon? You can share your opinion with Gov. Kate Brown’s office here: www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/share-your-opinion.aspx