Gov. Tina Kotek has called a special session of the Oregon Legislature to appropriate funds to pay for the historic 2024 wildfire season and cover its obligation to pay firefighting crews.

The special session is set to start Dec. 12.

Costs this wildfire season exceeded $350 million as a record 1.9 million acres burned — far exceeding the state’s 10-year average of 640,000 acres per season.

Kotek is asking the Legislature to release a combined total of $218 million to the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Department of the State Fire Marshal to address all costs for the season to date.

That includes meeting the state’s obligation to small, medium and large contractors who worked to protect and support Oregonians for more than five months.

While more than half of the costs will eventually be covered by disaster relief funds from the federal government, the state needs to pay its bills as expeditiously as possible, according to a news release.

Unforeseen costs

“The unprecedented 2024 wildfire season required all of us to work together to protect life, land and property, and that spirit of cooperation must continue in order to meet our fiscal responsibilities,” Kotek said, in the news release.

“I am grateful to legislative leaders for coming to consensus that our best course of action is to ensure the state’s fire season costs are addressed and bills paid by the end of the calendar year,” she added.

House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-West Eugene and Veneta, said fighting wildfires this season required a tremendous amount of resources that even experts couldn’t foresee.

“Now, as we approach the end of the year and the holiday season, we need to make good on our commitments and pay our bills so that the contractors who fought fires in Oregon can be made whole,” she said, in the news release.

“Convening now will enable us to do so, and to chart a bipartisan path forward to address our state’s most pressing needs,” Fahey added.

Republican response

House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, R-Canby, called the Oregon Department of Forestry “insolvent, and riddled with ongoing bureaucratic dysfunction which left it unable to pay staff or outstanding invoices without loans.”

“Republicans welcome the opportunity to solve this problem by ensuring the people who work to protect Oregon communities during wildfire season are paid for their service,” Drazan said in a statement.

“This bi-partisan legislative call for a special session will immediately address those compensation needs — many of which are months in arrears,” she added.

Fire season background

Wildfires this season destroyed at least 42 homes and 132 other structures and caused severe disruptions and damage to transportation facilities, utility infrastructure and natural resource economies.

In July, Kotek declared a state of emergency in response to the threat of wildfire. She invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act a state record 17 times to mobilize structural firefighting resources and thousands of wildland firefighting personnel.