Fire crews across Jackson and Josephine Counties responded to multiple fires last week.
Kyle Sullivan, Bureau of Land Management Medford District
Last week, crews in Jackson and Josephine counties responded to about 50 fires after thunderstorms ripped through the area. Last year, Oregon lawmakers passed comprehensive legislation to help communities prepare for wildfires. Funding from the legislation helped hire more workers, according to Natalie Weber, with the Oregon Department of Forestry Southwest Oregon District. She says her region hired additional leaders, including an assistant district forester.
“We also added two new protection supervisors, those are the supervisors that supervise firefighters. And actually this week those positions really did come in handy,” she said. “We were able to really divide both counties and quadrants as far as fires and locations and command structure.”
Weber said without the additional positions, fighting recent fires would have looked very different.
About 600 personnel worked on those fires.
Weber spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller about the fires. Click play to listen to the full conversation:
