Fire News & Fire Prevention-Related Websites

Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) Fire Program

ODF Southwestern Oregon Region Wildland Fire Info

Rogue Valley Fire Prevention Co-op - New!!

Wildland / Urban Interface in Oregon - ODF's site has loads of info on this topic, including sections on Senate Bill 360, the Oregon Forestland-Urban Interface Fire Protection Act of 1997, the law that declares that property owners have a basic responsibility to provide their property with fire protection and use fire preventive methods. Also includes discussions on "Living in the Wildland / Urban Interface," "Evaluate Your Home and Property," and more.

Fire Information / Jackson County Area

Oregon Fire Department Links

National Fire Plan

National Fire Plan / Oregon State Summary

FIREWISE - National Wildland / Urban Interface Fire Protection Program

Wildfire News of the Wildland Firefighters Foundation

National Interagency Fire Center

Multi-Agency National Fire Plan Implementation (USDA)

National Interagency Coordination Center

USDA Forest Service / Fire and Aviation Management

National Weather Service / Fire Weather Program

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) / US Fire Administration

Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Office of Fire and Aviation

California Fire Safe Council

Defensible Space site

Applegate Fire Plan

Applegate / Jackson County Fire District #9

Jackson County Fire District #3 Home Page

Jackson County Air Quality / Open Burning Ordinance

City of Ashland Fire Department

City of Medford Fire Department

Oregon State University's Josephine County Extension Service

California Department of Forestry

Jackson County Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - fire district and map info or Smart Map (select Interactive Maps to search specific properties.) The GIS systems map combines layers of information about a place. You can analyze your level of fire safety or risk with this map.

University of California Forest Products Laboratory

Wildfire Sprinkler Protection Systems

Fire Prevention & Protection Publications:

"Living With Fire: A Guide for the Homeowner," published by the Jackson County Planning Department, and mailed to all Jackson County listed landowners in spring, 2001. This is a thorough, excellent source of all kinds of info on wildfire and rural - urban interface fire protection and prevention. Additional copies may still be available from any Jackson County library branch, the Jackson County Planning Dept. at 10 So. Oakdale Ave., Room 100 (in the old Jackson County Courthouse) in Medford, or from ODF's office at 5286 Table Rock Road in Central Point.

"Is Your Home Fire Safe?" and "Wildfire: Are You Prepared?" published by U.S. Fire Administration Publications Center (free; 800 / 561-3356).

California Wildfire Landscaping, by Maureen Gilmer. Taylor Publishing Co., Dallas, TX, 1994. $10.95. "What to do before, during and after a wildfire ... the selection of a 'defensible' homesite and building materials, insurance, and fire-resistant landscaping..." Also covers "Creating Bands of Protection with Plants, Managing Native Vegetation, [and] Getting Help: Public and Private Resources," and "How to Comply with the High Fire Zones Law." Lots of useful info on establishing natural fire breaks.

"Living with Fire." San Mateo County, CA., Fire Safe Committee (free; 650 / 573-3848).

Other References about Fire

Non-Fiction:

Wildland Fires: History of Forest Fires in Siskiyou County, by Lee Morford. Privately published by the late Morford, a lifelong forest ranger on the Klamath National Forest and later a wildland fire consultant. Cost: $15 but generally unavailable and out of print. Libraries in Siskiyou County may have a copy. Chronicles firefighting in this area during the past century. Both a fascinating personal account, and a fact-filled historical triptych.

Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, by Stephen J. Pyne. Princeton UP: Princeton, New Jersey, 1982. A very well-written, erudite analysis and synthesis of information about fire and its cultural history in this country's wildlands. Connects "...the basic science of fire and ecosystems to management and policy discussions; not by way of overgeneralization, but region by region and ecosystem by ecosystem." Covers fire and fire policies in America from pre-history to Paiute and frontier forestry and the evolution of fire management to the present-day conservation movement. A recognized authority on fire, Pyne has also published 5 or 6 other works dealing with different fire topics.

Fire and Civilization, by Johan Goudsblom. Penguin: London, 1992. (paper; U.S. $11.95) A worldwide survey of the ancient history of fire and its cultural uses and significances, through the industrial revolution. Goudsblom is a professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam.

The Firefighter's Workout Book, by Michael Stefano. "A Thirty Minute a Day Train-For-Life Program for Men and Women." (hardcover, $24.95)

Jumping Fire: A Smoke Jumper's Memoir of Fighting Wildfire, by Murry A. Taylor. (Harcourt; paper, $14.) "...Taylor's riveting memoir of 35 years of fighting wildfires in Alaska..."

Fire, by Sebastian Junger. (paper, $13.95) "The author of The Perfect Storm takes us behind the scenes of the world's most dangerous jobs, from smoke jumper to freedom fighter."

Fire Line: Summer Battles of the West, by Michael Thoele.

Fiction:

"USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky" in A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, by Norman Maclean. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1976. Maclean became an author after retiring from teaching English at the Univ. of Chicago. His stories are part fiction, part memoir, informed by his own experience of the early 20th century, infused with deadpan humor and sobering reflections, and narrated in a voice that only a master of language and metaphor can speak from.

Hole in the Sky, by William Kittredge.

A Fine and Pleasant Misery, by Patrick F. McManus.

Other Sites & Sources of Interest

ODF's D.L. Phipps Nursery - info & application forms for reforestation seedlings. An excellent source of seedlings of all types in bulk quantities available to the non-commercial landowner engaged in reforestation.

Oregon State University Forestry Extension Service, County extension foresters and publications.

Guide to Reforestation in Western Oregon is available online (in pdf format), and from ODF offices and from the Oregon State University College of Forestry.

Woodland Workbook: A How-To Guide for the Woodland Owner/Manager (WOOD WB; $41.50) is a three-ring binder containing 29 core publications, is "very useful," and is available from OSU Extension Service.

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