District Description Silverton Fire District #2 has nine full-time employees and over 65 volunteers. Silverton Fire District provides emergency medical services as well as fire services to an area of about 106 square miles and serves a population of over 23,000 from five stations. Both volunteers and paid staff work under the direction of the Fire Chief.

The Silverton Fire District service area is in both Clackamas and Marion counties. For information on the service area within Marion County, see the Marion County CWPP.

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Silverton is the location of the largest wildland fire in Oregon’s history, which burned over 1 million acres of timber in 1865. Except for the 2020 Labor Day fires, there have been few large fires leading to heavy fuel loading that could cause another large fire to ignite.

Silverton’s Fire District is a rural area on the eastern edge of Clackamas County adjacent to large tracts of federal, state, and private forests. The terrain is steep, causing access and communication limitations. The area attracts campers, hikers, anglers, ATV users, hunters, and other visitors that can potentially start wildfires that could carry from public land to the residential communities.

The area is characterized by rural residential homes surrounded by heavy fuels and steep slopes. In addition, many of the neighborhoods have only single access (one way in and one way out) with narrow, steep driveways and poor address signage. Heavy and continuous fuels dominate this area, so fires that begin on public land or on smaller private residential lots can quickly threaten the communities and natural resources that thrive in the Silverton Fire District.

Structural Ignitability Silverton Fire District promotes the creation of defensible space, use of fire-resistant roofing and building materials, and community preparedness in the WUI. The Silverton Fire District works with the City of Silverton, the City of Scotts Mills, and Clackamas County to integrate these concepts at the regulatory level by providing input on access and water requirements for new development.

The City of Silverton provides land use planning and building permit services within the city. Coordination between the District and the City is excellent. Unincorporated areas are served by Clackamas County Land Use Planning and Building Departments. Silverton Fire has experienced some difficulties coordinating with the County and is not always notified to provide information on fire flow and access for new lots of record. Additionally, many homes are being built on existing lots of record with no input from the Fire District on issues such as access and water. This issue has been identified as a County-wide issue and therefore is articulated as a need in the Clackamas CWPP Action Plan. Silverton Fire also does not have access to the County’s Velocity Hall System, which catalogues pending and approved building permits. The need for enhanced communication between Clackamas County and Silverton Fire has been noted in the Silverton Fire Action Plan.

Emergency Response Emergency response is challenging in the Silverton Fire District because staff are almost entirely volunteer, with only nine paid staff. A major wildland urban interface fire in Silverton would quickly exceed the resources and capabilities of the District. For this reason, Silverton Fire has mutual aid agreements in place, which allow for the sharing of resources across the county in the event of a large- scale disaster such as a wildfire.

The Silverton Fire District supports annual wildland fire training, which includes S-130 and S-190 as well as all others required for engine boss. Silverton Fire is fortunate that they can work with local farmers to implement prescribed field burns that provide the live fire experience critical to retaining wildland fire qualifications.

The District has received a number of modern used radios since 2018. However, during a multi-agency response, interoperability remains an issue for Silverton Fire because their used 800 MHz radios do not always connect to VHF radio; in addition, some are poorer quality and do not display radio frequencies.

Because Silverton Fire District does not have a hydrant system that extends to rural areas, it is important to begin identifying and improving potential water sites. This is especially important for homes that have long narrow driveways that will not support water tenders.

In the event of a large wildland fire, evacuations may be necessary. This rural area presents some difficulties due to the large number of single access roads with poor addressing. There are also a significant number of private bridges with unknown load capacity, especially along South Butte Creek Road. Since 2018, Silverton Fire has finishing a project to work ODF to improve address signage in vulnerable areas. As needed, the District will continue to work with the Clackamas County Clackamas Wildfire Collaborative to implement address signage in local Communities at Risk (CAR).

Burning of yard waste, agricultural waste, and other debris is challenging in the Silverton Fire District because backyard burning is allowed in all areas. Silverton Fire District tries to be consistent with neighboring jurisdictions’ backyard burning programs but does not have staff or resources to regulate burning in Silverton. The District is also home to many Christmas tree operations that have authority to burn an incredible amount of material all year long regardless of the severity of fire danger or air quality restrictions. Silverton Fire would like to work with ODF to develop a better strategy for dealing with Christmas tree waste such as a chipper cooperative. This has been identified in the Silverton Action Plan.