Another gray, gloomy day in Portland. I wander around the neighborhood, catching up on things that have changed since the last time I did these wanderings, and dropping off books in assorted Little Free Libraries (while checking to see if there’s anything I might want to pick up for myself).
This particular neighborhood lacks sidewalks for a good portion of the area. Several short-stay places are tucked back on the long lots, once standard in this section of PDX but now frequently converted into flag lots or short-stay backyard tiny homes. When we bought in this area over twenty years ago, it was in transition from poor to lower middle-class housing to solidly middle and upper-middle class housing. That transition is still in progress but it’s moving along quickly these days. Some houses underwent extensive remodeling while others were torn down, to be replaced by bigger, multiple houses on those big lots. Block-sized apartment complex rise around the main traffic corridors. As building occurs, down come the remnants of the second-growth Douglas firs in the neighborhood.
Not that the area lacks vegetation. Oh no. There’s lots of vegetation, including vining plants of various species, and enough thickets of brush hanging over sidewalks that make me think the place could benefit from the pruning job administered by a herd of town deer.
And that’s where I get into the “it could happen here” vibe.
These days I spend a lot of my time in a more arid climate, near forests and grasslands, in places that have already seen a lot of wildfire. Even in town one doesn’t see the degree of brushy vegetation near houses that one finds in PDX. Oh, there’s some, but it’s not like I see in this neighborhood.
That makes me shudder, because in spite of Portland’s wet reputation, the place has dry summers. More frequent hot summers. While the conditions leading to the 2025 Los Angeles conflagration don’t happen here as often as they do LA, they do happen—as the fires in September, 2020, proved.
This neighborhood briefly underwent a Level 1 evacuation warning during those fires. It didn’t last long and nothing happened, fortunately, but…I look at the brush around so many houses and can’t help but be concerned.
Oh, I understand the instinct. Paradoxically, this section of Portland is also labelled as one of the places that has heat issues due to lack of trees. It’s a lot easier to encourage the growth of shrubs and vines.
But still…I look at a lot of what I see and shudder.
We often think of the Portland wildfire danger as lurking in the West Hills, because of Forest Park and the number of houses built in and amongst the second-growth Douglas firs in that area. It’s not the only part of town that needs to be concerned.
And that doesn’t even get into the bug issues, because vegetation right against the house also gives carpenter ants an easy route inside…and other bugs as well.
But most of all, I just walk through the neighborhood on a foggy gray day and think about fire. Worry about fire.
It’s unlikely but all the same…it could happen here.
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