As Wegner recalls, “There were people hanging out in the park and walking around with their lunches, with complete destruction happening mere miles away.” In Ashland, where both Chambers and Wegner work, only a few structures were damaged, and during the fire many people were going about business as usual. This map shows the wildfire risk score of homes across Ashland, with red indicating highest risk. “When I drove home that day, I thought to myself, ‘oh wow, that car driving toward me has paint on it.’ It seemed strange since I’d been looking at so many cars burned to bare metal.” Jason Wegner, the City’s GIS Manager at the time, assigned to a damage assessment team, was also haunted by the wreckage. The initial priority had to be getting people out, not putting the fire out.” “I drove right into the flames of an entire neighborhood burning. The disaster reinforced a greater need for wildfire mitigation for each home and every neighborhood-a measure the City of Ashland is taking using smart maps and risk modeling.Īshland Fire & Rescue’s Wildfire Division Chief Chris Chambers recalled the devastation. When the Almeda Fire swept through Oregon’s Rogue Valley in September 2020, it destroyed or damaged over 2,750 structures including 2,400 homes in the region between the towns of Ashland, Talent, and Phoenix. Before a fire happens, maps build critical knowledge to guide response, mitigation, and recovery.Risk maps help the fire department prioritize outreach to homeowners to improve defensible space and encourage home hardening upgrades.The City of Ashland’s fire department and mapping professionals team up to catalogue wildfire risk for every home.Ashland Fire & Rescue uses maps to catalogue wildfire risk for every parcel, prioritize outreach to homeowners, empower effective defensible space, and facilitate future wildfire response.
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