Bend Don't Break: Melissa Steele, Deputy Fire Marshal of Wildfire Preparedness for Bend Fire & Rescue

In this episode of Bend Don’t Break, host Aaron Switzer sits down with Melissa Steele, Deputy Fire Marshal for Wildfire Preparedness at Bend Fire and Rescue. Melissa brings more than two decades of experience in firefighting and prevention, including years with Cal Fire during the devastating Paradise fire, to her new role in Central Oregon.

Melissa shares her journey from the front lines of catastrophic wildfires to leading efforts that help homeowners reduce risk and protect their communities. The conversation explores the realities of urban wildfire, the importance of defensible space and home hardening, and why proactive planning matters more than ever. Melissa also offers practical tips for residents and insight into how Bend is preparing for the future. Tune in for an eye-opening discussion about resilience, responsibility, and what it takes to keep our neighborhoods safe.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Ben Don't Break Podcast. We are powered by the Source, Ben's locally owned media company and weekly newspaper. This podcast is our eddy in the rushing waters of local journalism. We are glad that you are taking some of your time to listen to us chat with the people who shape our local community. Support us through our member program at Bensource.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Remax Key Properties, a family-owned, full-service real estate brokerage specializing in residential, luxury, commercial, new construction, and ranch and land properties. Their new state-of-the-art facility at 42 Greenwood Avenue is a modern collaborative space and the new home of the Bin Don't Break Podcast Recording Studio.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

I'm Aaron Sweitzer, publisher of the Source and producer of this fine podcast with Megan Burton as co-producer off-camera. Today we are joined by Melissa Steele, Deputy Fire Marshal of Wildlife Preparedness for Ben Fire and Rescue. I have been in she's been in the Forest Fire Service for 24 years. 22, I've not actually been in the fire service. 22 years was spent as a firefighter captain with U.S. Forest Service, Oregon Department of Forestry, and Cal Fire in Paradise, California, before coming to the prevention division as a fire inspector with Bend Fire and Rescue in 2022. She was recently promoted to a new position of Deputy Fire Marshal of Wildlife Preparedness for the City of Bend and surrounding areas, contracted by Shirts Row Fire Protection District number two, and she conducts wildfire risk assessments for homeowners and educates on how to keep the community safe. She is an instructor for the U.S. Fire Administration's National Fire Academy's Wildland Urban Interface Program.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Did I get all that correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

You did. Except for the wild, you said wildlife, not wildfire preparedness.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Wild land, wildfire, wildlife. Yes. Well, Melissa, thanks for thanks for being here. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. So right off the, I gotta say, out of this, what jumps right off is Paradise, California, because that has a very uh very definitive kind of context, even though it was something before the fire and it's something after. But did you have association with paradise around that fire?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yes, I did. I did, absolutely. Yeah. So uh born and raised in Chico and bought my first house in Paradise um in 2009. So um currently was there. Um everybody I know, every uh you know, agency member I worked with, every coworker lost everything. So it wasn't just um, you know, something that you lose personally, it's on a scale of community, which is completely different feeling.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Right. The um if you haven't seen the documentary and you're not familiar with that what happened to uh Paradise California, the uh do you know remember the name of the documentary off the top?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

So that was a Netflix documentary um that I believe Ron Howard did. Ron Howard did. Yeah, exactly. Um I still to be honest, have not seen it. It's a little hard for me to watch that. Um so I, you know, knowing what happened and all that, I'll just I'll believe that they did it correctly.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

They did an incredible job. I mean, if if you want to see a great documentary, they use uh phone footage um that people took trying to escape the fire and um and it was it was completely wiped out. Were you part of the fire um were you part of the fire crew? Were you?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, so I worked for Calfire at that time. Okay. Um so kind of a different perspective, right? Of um wanting to help and save and and you know, serve our community, but also knowing that a lot of things personally are being lost.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it gives you, I mean, uh great perspective and a little bit of more of a sense of urgency for those of us here who, you know, for us a lot of fire forest fires. I mean, I lived really close to the Twin Bulls fire in Tamil, and I could look out and see the fire, but it's quite a different thing when it's uh Windsor in your prevailing direction.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it gives me an interesting perspective to look at the way the community or the culture perceives wildfire. In paradise before 2018, during the campfire, there wasn't this sense sense of urgency that a wildfire could come through. Sure. And that's what I'm seeing here in Bend currently is that we just haven't had quote unquote the big one. Right. And so it's not on the forefront of people's minds. Um, but when you go to Paradise Now, which I go back and visit very often, um, the comp the culture's completely changed. People are rebuilding with fire safe materials, fire ignition, you know, um resistant materials. They're they're building the correct way, they're planting the correct vegetation, complete culture change.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yeah, wow, well, I will I can imagine. Yeah. I remember the one thing that jumped out to me, and this may be totally on a tangent, but the fire was so hot it melted the irrigation pipes in the ground. Like the plastic pipes in the ground melted. And you think about how much plastic irrigation is in the ground, and what a nightmare that would be to try to clean up, or even if you can clean it up, I don't know how that would work.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, you're talking large-scale cleanup and restoration. So when there isn't water, you can't have people come back to their homes when there isn't electricity. You know, so when everybody evacuated, they were gone for four months. Yeah, they did not get back on the property for four months. That's not something I think people think about when they think about evacuation. You have no idea what time you're coming back because, like you mentioned, the amount of cleanup is it takes months.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah, watching those um footage of those bulldozers and and I mean normally you think I think tornado-esque kind of stuff where it's just someone scraping the stuff off the ground, putting in a truck, getting away, but this was completely environmental.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Well, and when you think about what was burning, right? What was the fuel that was burning? Sure, it started as a wildfire in the forest, yeah, but then turned into an urban wildfire. And that's our risk here in Bend is um we've got the trees, we've got the flannel vegetation, but we also have our homes. And our homes burn at a at 2,000 degrees as a structure fire versus a tree, which is 800 degrees. So when you're thinking about what is the fuel that's fire, you know, um, what is the fuel that is making these fire so catastrophic, it's what we own, it's what we have. It's yeah. And so um one of the reports just came out from Southern California over the Palisades fire, and one of the biggest factors was um electric vehicles. I mean, you can't stop electric, you know, lithium-ion battery vehicles. You there's not enough water in the world to put those out, especially on a large scale. So so there wasn't any getting ahead of that fire because of contributions of all the man-made things that we have.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Yeah, I I I'm I I have an electric vehicle. So I've watched the videos of these of Teslas catching on fire and fire departments having no way to put it out. They watch it or they um some of them now I think are armed with foam or some kind of powder, but um but if it was widespread, uh where there would be no amount of resources, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

There's no no amount of resources, and and that I think is really eye-opening to a lot of people, is that they wanted to blame somebody, right? We want to point fingers in a in a catastrophe of um, well, that was your fault, or we should have done this, or you should have done that. But when you think about it, there's not enough resources or water or anything to put out or suppress a hundred years in the making of construction the wrong way, right? Houses, you know, um connected by wooden fences, and all of the stuff we have. I mean, this was a problem that has been made over the last hundred years. Right. So um we'll never have enough resources. We will never have enough water. Um, what we need to do is protect our own home from igniting in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah, and I've heard uh I know sisters area got a lot of um media attention for their house hardening program. Can you speak a little bit to house hardening and what that's absolutely yeah?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

So there's two main um components to wildfire preparedness and safety. One is defensible space, which a lot of people have heard includes the bushes and things, but that other piece is the home hardening. So this is things like um fire-resistant roofing materials, fire-resistant siding, um, making sure that all your foundation and eve vents are closed and closed with eighth-inch metal mesh screening to keep embers out. Because as we saw in Southern California, you've got a stucco home with a metal roof. That's a non-combustible building. Why is it burning down? Because embers had gone in through eaves and burned from the inside out. And so, home hardening, really, if you think about it, is your home standing all by itself alone without any fire suppression in a wildfire. Your home needs to be able to have embers hit it and it survive, which is so doable. Is it doable? It is absolutely doable. Sounds not doable. It is absolutely doable. I have seen over my 25 years in the fire service, I have seen so many homes survive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well, you see those things and it kind of looks like luck a lot of times on which homes survive, but probably if you looked closer.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

We have to get away from the miracle home.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yeah, the miracle.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

It's in a miracle. It's called fire science. And so, um, I mean, there's a famous home in Lahaina, right? That everybody talks about with the red roof, the red roof house. Um, they actually did all the clearing and defensible space, but they didn't do it for fire. They actually built their house the way they did and cleared their veget vegetation because of termites.

unknown 9:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

And because of that, because there was nothing combustible around the home, that was the only home that survived right in that destruction area. So it's not a miracle. It just embers didn't land on anything combustible.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Yeah. What um what do you see as your I mean, I know that the home hardening is, however, uh still somewhat of a burden on developers, and it's something that a lot of people don't want to step to. Um, but is it optional? So at this point in time, I'm talking to a fire person. I realize this listener. Yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

That's okay. At this point in time, there's no law or anything saying that you have to build a certain way, right? And maybe that's the issue. We are building the wrong way. So we know that there's policy out there, there's um R327, which is a building code, um, and that is being heavily looked at by Deschutes County right now to adopt this R327, which is uh wildfire home hardening for all brand new construction. Right. So that's kind of the low-hanging fruit, right? New homes that are going to be built will all be built correctly. But what do we do with all the existing homes?

SPEAKER_02 11:08

We we burn them down.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

They they need to be they need to be um home hardened the best that we can. But like you said, that gets expensive and that is a burden on the homeowner. And so there are different ways, tips, ideas of things that you can do. We focus on the first five feet.

unknown 11:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

That is where you want to focus. So let's say you have a wooden fence attached to your home. You don't have to replace your whole wooden fence. Just the first five feet that is attached to your home, take away those wooden boards and put in a metal gate, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

But then a neighbor might be able to walk in.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

With a metal gate.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

I thought you were suggesting we we allow these homes to not have fully enclosed area.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

No, I have three Labradors. I need, I know, that's not gonna work. So, so absolutely, but um, having that fence, but put in a metal gate. Put in so as a fire is burning down a fence, it stops with no fire suppression. I mean, it is so doable, but it it does cost some money. So um, you know, a lot of people are getting creative. I do hundreds of inspect uh assessments, and what I'm seeing is people buying metal privacy fences that are about four or eight feet long, you know. And then they're adding a home gate kit from Home Depot or Lowe's, and for under $200, they can build one and install it. So, I mean, there's so many things that people can do, um, and it's all voluntary. Once uh we have a defensible space code, which I see coming in the future, um, these are things that are going to be requirements. So it's a really good thing to start working on those things now.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yeah. Well, uh the some of the stuff where it's a requirement is and again, we talk about Paradise, California, but the cost of taking care of it after the fact, it's like any of these things. I gotta imagine it's a little bit more expensive when you're coming and rebuilding a city than it is to 100% put gates on and do these things.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Absolutely. And like we are talking about um structure-to-structure ignition, right? Urban wildfire.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

If you can I had never thought about that, by the way. That like some little gas line runs from your neighbor's house to your house if you've got this connectable fence. And yeah, no, absolutely it's like a way so many of those neighborhoods have that fence that runs all the way along.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

And we're still continuing to build that way. And we know the research, and that's what just drives me crazy is we know why homes burn down. Yeah, all fires start with one ember.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

If that ember lands on something non-combustible, we don't have to worry about it.

unknown 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

So keeping your home from igniting in the first place is going to be good for your whole community, right? You're only as safe as your neighbor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

What if I have a neighbor who's got gas cans lying around the front yard and does not have a defensible space?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Those are conversations we start with, right? We extend that olive branch and we talk about hey, the fire department offers a free wildfire assessment. You know, um, have me come out. We can talk about those things together as neighbors. One thing that's gotten really popular is I'll come out and do a wildfire risk assessment on one property, and they invite six to 10 neighbors to join. And so I can educate 10 households with just one home and they all affect each other. So it is it's firewise. You've heard probably the NFPA term firewise. Firewise community only means that their neighbors talk to each other, they um communicate with fire safety, they help each other on fuels mitigations, they work together so that the community as a whole is safe.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I could see you going to those meetings with an axe and just hitting some boards between the houses. As much as I want to do that, I can sense that you would like to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

No, I don't know how why you got that impression. Yeah, it's it, you know, having this passion from just my background. Yeah, I I feel this is such a good move by the city council to create this position where we can empower, not scare. I'm not trying to code, fire code this to death. Fire code's great, but it doesn't educate people, right? So this position is all about educating and getting people to take the stand. How can you ask a firefighter to protect your home if you haven't done anything?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

I I just I don't understand that concept. But a lot of times people don't think about it, right? It's not on the forefront of their, you know, their mind. They have other things. They've got meetings and work and kids and bills. They're not thinking wildfire.

unknown 15:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

And it's it's just that conversation we need to start having.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Yeah. I mean, I can I mean, I'm probably guilty of this myself. You just believe that there are angels waiting to swoop in and save your house if that if it's on fire. Yeah. You think they're coming.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah. Well, let me scare you a little bit more. Um, so when you're thinking big picture, we're thinking about the city of Bend, right? We have five fire engines on duty at 24-7, right? Five for the whole city. It takes three of those engines to put out one structure fire. So when you start thinking multiple homes that have been a few years, so if I got three, if I have three homes on fire, we're right there, we're we're already capped, right? And so we are automatically calling in for mutual aid, which happens all the time. Um, we'll get resources from all the surrounding fire agencies. Um, they're on their way, they get moving quick, but it takes time.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

How many can come in? Oh, as many as we call for. Yeah, but I mean, if you call, let's just say you call from the central Oregon area and you uh you have five. How many can come?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

As so that is the um determination of the incident commander. What we normally do for wildfire is we dispatch a strike team or a task force. A strike team is five engines. So we'll say we need, so in paradise started, um, the IC said, I want 25 strike teams. So 25 strike teams of times five engines for each strike team, right? That's a lot of resources. So that is if those resources are available. Right. What if it's a really bad fire season and all of our resources from you know Oregon are all somewhere else, you know, on the other side of the state? Um, it takes time. Yeah. So by the time all of the resources got to uh the Palisades fire and the Eaton fire in LA, it was 72 hours later. The fire was already over.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

So what can we do to make that not happen? We can control the amount of homes that catch on fire.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Right. And I don't I don't know if you have an assessment of this, but are we in any kind of position to be protecting these? I mean, on the on your scale of zero to a hundred, Bend is how defensible?

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Well, I mean, I I couldn't I wouldn't give you a a number because what I'm thinking is when I so I've only been with the department about four years. When I came here, I would say that I was shocked that this wildfire preparedness wasn't a thing. Now, I would say we did Ben Fire did wildfire assessments. They they did those. Um, they would do anywhere from 25 to 75, maybe a year.

unknown 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

This year we did 800.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

And that was because of January 7th, um, the fires in the Palisades. A lot of people in Bend have a connection to Southern California, whether it's family members or they live there or whatever it was. So that caught the attention of people. So we are in the infancy state.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

It's always helpful if a celebrity's home catches on fire. I can't. If it can happen to them, it can happen to the rest of the city. It can happen to anyone, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

I know. And and those are yeah, you get the attention with the big fires, right? Nobody knows how many fires our crews are putting out all summer. Everybody I says a lot of things after fire season, like, wow, what a great summer. That was an easy fire season. And the firefighters on the back end are like, we worked our butt off. I don't know what you're saying, but that's because they kept them all small. You don't hear about those. You hear about the giant, catastrophic, you know, wildland urban conflagrations. And that is um something I am trying to prevent and bend.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well, I think I mean that fire down in LA was one of the first times where we've seen residential developments burn. I mean, plenty of forest fires. And it's usually like, yeah, I and you know, I think for people here, the Mackenzie fire um burning down there, and now you drive it and you see the devastation, you see all those homes. I mean, I've lived here for 30 years. I never saw the river on that drive, you know, and now it looks like I'm in Utah. Yeah. So um, I think that was another eye-opener, but seeing residential developments burn through those woods, and again, it's Shiraco winds, and you kind of push it off like, oh, well, that's that's LA. You know, they they do everything wrong.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Well, no, I then you bring up a good point. Who would have thought that Lahaina would have something like this? It's a tropical location. Right. Forest fire is the last thing they're thinking of, but we're not talking about forest fires. We're talking about urban wildfire. Yeah, and that is completely different. And and that can start from a structure fire. People ask me a lot, are you worried about the forest burning around Bend? And I will be honest, no, that's not my biggest concern. And the reason for that is because the Forest Service, Oregon Department of Forestry, they are super aggressive in excellent forest management. And so they're doing the things out there to protect the city from a fire in the woods coming towards us. But where do fires start? Where people are, where are where's the density in town? So if we get a structure fire in the summer on a really windy day and we have houses that are five feet apart connected with fences, we have we have the perfect ingredients for a disaster right now.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah. Well, and it's in some of the places within Bend, it's um, I mean, when I first moved here, I lived in a rental. It was all mill scrap. Yeah. And those houses are it was scary to be there. And I knew nothing about wildfire pretension. Yeah, but you knew darn well that there was newspapers stuffed in there for insulation. Oh, yeah, and scrap and dried cedar that it that's up on the wall that's been there for 50 years. And um yeah, those homes seem uh like they would pose a threat.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Absolutely. And you know, we have the um ordinance with no uh wood shake shingle cedar roofs. That's that's an ordinance that we have, which is excellent. That was a great, great start in the right direction, but we need to keep going. Yeah. We need to keep going.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

So uh you've been they created this position. You're in the position now. What's your What's your first? What are you working on? What's your what are you looking to tackle?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So this is pretty exciting because this is the first time that we've had a position dedicated to just wildfire preparedness. So the first thing is to get organized, right? What are we? We're doing a lot of these assessments. How are we going to store them? Where's this data going? What do we want to learn from this data? You know, so right now we're working on some new software that is wildfire specific so that we can do an assessment, log it, and then um follow a trend and have some data, you know, what that looks like over time. Um, one of the other things that this this position does, which I really enjoy, is finding money, right? There's grants out there. There are um a lot of assistance programs and grants for for agencies and residents. My job is to connect the resources with the person. So I'm researching a lot. I'm looking at um state policy, county policy. Um, I'm looking at all of the things that might affect the future in five to 10 years. So as I'm building this wildfire program, I'm not looking at right now. I am looking 10 years from now, what is this going to look like? Um, and then another part of that is the education piece. So I speak a lot at HOA annual business meetings, um, neighborhood district meetings. I will go anywhere as long as there's an audience that's interested because there's one of me, and if I can fill a room, I can hit more people. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

I kind of think you fill a room. I mean, and this could, this could, this could go like wildfire on that uh thing. But listeners are gonna be asking for you to come to their HOAs.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah, no, and I'm happy to do that. Um, we kind of are looking at all the assessments that are done, neighborhood districts. There's some neighborhood districts in the city that have no one's reached out, there's zero. And then there's some on the west side that have 200, you know. So we gotta find those places where we're missing the boat. Yeah, and it start educating some more.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

When as Ben continues to grow and there's more and more developments, I mean, a lot of this development happens on the fringes, it it moves into that space. And um sometimes there's one road into that thing. And and do you do they call you in when you see that when the city sees a development like that and go, Yeah, Melissa, we need you.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

They do not call me, they call the fire marshal. So um, but yeah, but that's a lot of what our new construction, our assistant fire marshal, does is they have the final say basically in um new development. So there's I mean, no one really thinks about this, but when a new development's put in, there's the size of the road that matters. There's parking only on one side for a reason because it's to get a fire engine down, right? So all of these things are looked at as far as evacuations and water and access. Um, all of those things apply. Most, I will tell you, 99% of the communities in Bend have one way in and one way out. That is standard. Yeah. That's not a risk per se. That is just standard. So when we think of evacuation, obviously we our mind goes to everybody bottlenecking in one time and people dying in their cars because that's what they see on TV. Right. Um, but honestly, it doesn't normally go that way. You've got alert systems. When you get that alert system, know where you live, know where you're at. I mean, I would say people on, let's say, Aubrey Butte, because it has slope, right? Fire burns faster uphill, they probably are wanting to leave on an evacuation level one or two.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Like everybody knows that.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

For most people on Aubrey Butte. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Well, anywhere that's got some some type of uh slope or any kind of topography to it, if you live on a side of a slope, fire's gonna go faster uphill. So it might be harder for you to evacuate. So these are things you you accept extra risk if you live in these environments. So knowing your way back.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

They know it's that's the risk. I think they were like, I love the view.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah. Well, they're very actually they're very active in wildfire mitigation. Okay. Um, they have been in the last few years. I would say this last year has really taken off. Um, they've got a lot of volunteer firewise assessors that are doing assessments for their neighbors. Um, so they're very active.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

What's your role or how much do you coordinate with the Forest Service and those teams out there? How much training do you put in?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Um Yeah, that's a great question. So I have worked in several places, and I would say that Central Oregon does have the best partnerships with agencies. When I came here, it was amazing to see everybody talk together. So we have a Central Oregon fire prevention co-op. Everybody, every agency has a seat at that table. And we meet once a month. Um, as far as training and firefighting resources, um, City of Bend firefighters have just changed all their hose packs for wildfire to actually meet the standards of the Forest Service. So now when they work together, they can plug right into each other and keep going. Um, there's lots of interagency training that happens um countywide with different departments. So if we get a fire, if Ben gets a fire, Lapine knows exactly how to fight fire, what we're doing, right? And same when we go down there. So um the training and collaboration is pretty big.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah, um, again, speaking for a little bit from experience when we had the, we had it wasn't the twin bulls fire, but I was surprised to see three different fire entities there. There was Forest Service, there was the city, there was the county, and and all coordinating, some shutting the roads down, some doing the thing. So you guys must work on how to how to not step on each other's toes when something we all have different objectives, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

So uh the Forest Service and Oregon Department of Forestry firefighting resources are not allowed to go into structures. So they are going to, they're not trained for that, they're not allowed to do that. They're gonna train on the wildfire part, right? They're gonna hit that really hard. But when we show up, we are fire and life safety. So we are gonna go in structures, we're gonna do rescues. Um, that is everybody has their objective and their part, and how that works together is pretty seamless.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

I usually start with the question about how somebody from Paradise, California ended up ended up in Bend, but what drew you to the area? Was it the potential that the whole thing could go up and smoke?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

No, no, I know. People are like, you moved here after that? What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Um no, I Is there no but when they go to hire you? Was there no like you you just test the market?

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Like no, actually, I would love to go somewhere where there's no fire ever. Um, that would be lovely. But um, no, I am an outdoor enthusiast. And so I fly fish a lot. I love water. Um, if it's a river or stream, I am in it. Um, so that's kind of what brought me here, all the recreation. Um, and I like space. I have a little bit of room on my property, and so it's it's nice to just be able to space. You should see it. It's pretty, it is the poster children. It is a model for defensible space. Yeah. But also talking about um how I can help in my own community, right? So I don't live in the city, I live just outside. Um, but that community is in the county, and I am very active with helping them on a volunteer citizen basis. Um, so it's just one of those things that Bend is a lot like paradise. I will say it really, there's the southwest side of Ben that really reminds me of paradise, and it's beautiful. Um, but it's just as swammable. Right. So I felt that it was kind of my duty to be like, okay, this is what we need to do. This is where we need to start. Um, and we've made some great strides.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah. What um so long term, yeah, how long have you been in the position now? It's um September 1st. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

So what is your long midterm vision? I won't go long term because Lord knows we're all gonna be living in cinder block homes.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Right? I know. Everybody just go inside and have the fire pass and then we'll come out. Um yeah, so I think right now, with that short kind of short-term plan is getting a defensible space code in place. Yeah, we're kind of behind the curve on that. There are other departments that are just as big as us and smaller that have these in place already. So so that's gonna be one thing. Um, the education is gonna be huge, but I see looking down five, 10 years, that this talk about wildfire preparedness is just as common as somebody who has storm shutters on their, you know, windows in Florida. Right. Nobody asks why you have to have those.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Right. You just know you have to have storm shutters. That's the way that we should be here, that you have to have defensible space.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

But I I mean, I talk with hundreds of people a week, and that isn't the culture. That isn't the mindset.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Well, the culture, I mean, you have one advantage, I think, coming from Paradise, California, because it and and I could be wrong, but the demographic or the mindset around the interaction between an individual's rights and government's rights, very similar. And do you find as you're trying to educate on these people? Because you're walking the fine line between 100% what you know, my right to let my house burn to the ground versus people, you know, the the government's right to try to protect all the neighbors around and create these kind of defensible spaces. Do you feel like you're well suited to that having having come up from that environment?

SPEAKER_01 31:25

I I do. I feel that right now we're about 50-50. 50% of the population in Bend wants a defensible space code. And 50% are like, leave me alone. I don't want you to tell me what to do. In my eyes, and this is where I get a little strict, is it the defensible space in Bend is a non-negotiable. If you want to have your home survive or have the city be resilient to wildfire, it's a non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

And so that's where I am saying, I'm not asking you right now, as of, you know, today, you have to remove all your plants in the first five feet. Let's educate for a couple of years, have people do things voluntarily until this, you know, code goes into effect, if that's what we're gonna do. Um, nothing is um in writing yet. We're we're just throwing out ideas of how do we keep the community safe. It seems crazy to me that we have all this knowledge and this research. We know why homes burned down. Thank you, ring cameras, by the way, because we have all this ring camera footage that we can see a fire started because it landed in a furniture cushion and there's no uh fire resource around to put it out.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

So I mean someone might not even be home.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

I mean, those are those are the things like we know why homes burned down, but if we could at least have the code to back us up, you know, that is something. So um it is a fine line. I I don't normally mention my paradise background until I get things like um, well, I want my privacy. And then I have to say, Well, you're gonna have no privacy when your homebird's down. So those are the things.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

And everybody can see over a five-mile radius.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Exactly. So those are where I kind of draw back and then put it into perspective again. Right. I would do anything to have my home back, you know. I mean, if it was worth a tree taking out a tree, why wouldn't you do that? Yeah, we have too many trees in the wrong location.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Yeah. Well, in the wrong type. I mean, you got I've I can't tell you how many people I you look at and you see the juniper with the limbs resting on the roof, you know, which is I mean, those things explode.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

They do. And we have kind of a saying in the wildfire culture is right tree, right location. Um, let's say 20 years ago when these homes were just exploding and and building, all this landscaping was put in because it was evergreen and it was cute at the time, but they didn't take into consideration at mature height that's a 40-foot flammable wick.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah. Oh, I mean, you can't find that. Nobody wants them. Yeah. They've grown up and they're kind of there. They were planted 30 years ago and now they're just like these giant they look like flames. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Some of those junipers, they look like this is the hardest part of my job is telling people that they need or should remove these things because they look at me like, oh my, I know, I'm attached to these plantings, these trees, and I totally get that. But fires changed. Yeah. Our environment's changed. We can't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Well, grandma, grandma liked to carve out the area next to the house with the dirt and put all the little junipers in the thing against right against the house.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

One of the most familiar plants that we have. Right. Um, but yeah, you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Yeah. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming in and and chatting with us again. Uh I'll bring up the wildfire analogy. You're uh you're ready to run to these places. And I and I I do feel like you might come with an axe.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I mean, I have one in the truck, but I haven't used it yet.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

So only in an emergency. Melissa, if people need to get in touch with you or they want more information, where can they go?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Absolutely. So bendoregon.gov forward slash own your zone. That's our that's our program. And uh my information's on there. They can sign up for a free risk assessment on there. They can see videos. We've done lots of videos of what they need to do. Um, so that's where they're gonna want to go.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Great.

unknown 35:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Well, this has been the Ben Don't Break Podcast. I appreciate everybody tuning in. If you like what you heard, go to bendsource.com and click on the donate or become a member button and uh help us continue to bring in axes. And I I'm I'm fixated on the axe. I just love the idea that that you would go and just start getting grandma's junipers out of there like that.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

I would I would try to educate grandma first, but if it didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Well, Melissa, thank you for being you've been listening to the Ben Don't Break podcast, powered by the Source Weekly. To read, hear, and see more of what we do, go to Benssource.com.