EUGENE, Ore. – The removal of debris from homes destroyed by the Holiday Farm Fire is underway, and a massive timber-cutting effort aimed at removing dead and hazardous trees continues.
The Oregon Wildfire Debris Management Task Force reports nearly 10% of home sites registered for ash and debris removal in the McKenzie River Valley, where the wildfire began on Labor Day and burned about 400 homes, have been cleared of rubble.
Rebuilding can’t begin until home sites get a final soil sample and environmental sign-off. No homes in the Holiday Farm Fire area have gotten that approval yet. Homeowners will get a letter with results and can check the status of their home sites online.
Of the 272 properties that signed right-of-entry forms allowing the state to clear debris, 32 individual home sites have had rubble swept away by heavy machinery.
“The work has ramped up since last week,” said Oregon Wildfire Debris Management Task Force spokesman Yosef Yip.
The Wildfire Debris Management Task Force now has an online dashboard that details cleanup and debris removal efforts in each of last year’s wildfire zones.
A task force digital map shows zones along Highway 126 where ash and debris cleanup is underway or completed. Property owners can search the digital map by address.
The task force estimates as many as 70,000 trees in the Holiday Farm Fire zone along Highway 126 may need to be removed because they are dangerous. The task force has marked 16,175 trees for possible removal and has cut down more than 7,340 of them.
The removal of hazard trees in the McKenzie River Valley is expected to be a massive undertaking. The U.S. Forest Service has proposed a sweeping culling of such trees across the state, including along many country roads affected by the Holiday Farm Fire.
The Forest Service proposal includes examining and cutting hazard trees on 390 miles of roads in the Holiday Farm, Beachie Creek and Lionshead fire zones. Public comment on the proposal still can be sent to the Forest Service at elspeth.gustavson@usda.gov.
More: Forest Service plans sweeping roadside ‘hazard trees’ removal in wildfire areas
Lane County work crews removed hazard trees from 22 county roads and other local roads in the immediate aftermath of the fire, but that concerted work is largely done, said county spokeswoman Devon Ashbridge. She said tree removal will continue as needed and state arborists may shift their efforts off Highway 126 to county roads in the future.
Statewide, 845 home sites are cleared of debris, about 29% of the total, according to the task force data. The task force says 1,500 properties have signed right-of-entry forms, where one ROE form covers properties such as mobile home parks with multiple sites.
The task force estimates there are about 294,000 hazard trees under its jurisdiction. About 56,000 trees already have been marked as hazards, and 15,400 have been cut down and removed, according to task force data.
