1. If you can only remember one website, make it deschutes.org/emergency. It’s a one-stop shop for incident monitoring, preparedness resources, evacuation guidance, and more.
   
   

2. Sign up for Deschutes County Alerts. Receive emergency notifications and recommended actions via phone, text, email, and more for locations you care about. Available in Deschutes County, Crooked River Ranch, and Camp Sherman.
   
   

3. Know what the evacuation levels mean, and whenever possible, GO EARLY. Assume that Sisters Country is always on Level 1 (“Be Ready”) during the summer and early fall.
   
   

4. Download the Watch Duty app to stay up-to-speed on local fires, wind directions, air quality, evacuation orders, and more. 
   
   

5. Get to know your neighbors. Knowing your fellow community members has been shown to significantly improve emergency preparedness, resilience, response, and recovery (not to mention community well-being).
   
   

6. Create a customized emergency plan for your family and home. This includes emergency contacts, evacuation plans, designated meeting places, a communications plan, family roles and responsibilities, and special accommodations for kids, pets, etc.
   
   

7. Assemble a “go bag” with essential supplies, gear, documents, and keepsakes that you can easily grab in the event of an evacuation.
   
   

8. Request a FREE wildfire home assessment from Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District. Volunteers will visit your home and suggest ways you can make your property more wildfire resilient. 
   
   

9. Ensure you have sufficient defensible space around your home, and consider pursuing IBHS “Wildfire Prepared” certification.
   
   

10. Encourage your HOA to a) align their CC&Rs with defensible space best practices, and/or b) pursue Firewise neighborhood certification.
    
    

11. Talk to your insurance agent. Make sure you understand your coverage levels, discuss potential gaps, and make changes as needed to ensure appropriate coverage types and limits. If your rates have increased, ask if there are actions you can take to make it less expensive. If you’re not being renewed, ask for specific reasons why.

    • Need help finding insurance? Here’s a list of companies currently providing coverage in Oregon.

    • Feeling overwhelmed or confused?Get guidance from the Oregon Department of Financial Regulation, or reach out to one of their consumer advocates at 888-877-4894.
      
      

12. Build a home inventory and financial first aid kit.

    • Creating a visual and/or written record of your possessions can help assess if you have enough coverage before an incident, and help speed up and maximize claim payments after one. Visit dfr.oregon.gov/preparenow/pages/index for helpful tips, apps and forms.

    • Gather and securely store copies of financial and identifying records. Set aside cash for emergencies. Use ODFR’s financial preparedness checklist for further guidance.

• Wildfire in Sisters Country, Part 1: Are We Ready? (April 2025) | Evaluating our community’s preparedness for wildfire.

• Wildfire in Sisters Country, Part 2: Are We Covered? (May 2025) | Discussing current fire insurance challenges.

• COMING SOON: The Flat Fire: Reflections, Recovery, and Resilience (November 2025) | A retrospective on the Flat Fire, lessons learned, and the work still ahead.

For your family:

• deschutes.org/emergency | One-stop shop for regional emergency information and evacuation guidance

• Deschutes County Personal Emergency Plan packet | Templates and guidance for evacuation and communications plans, go bags, evacuation zones and levels, and much more.

• Project Wildfire evacuation guidance

• Evacuation for household pets and horses (NFPA)

• Cascadia Ready | Ready-made emergency kits

For your home & property:

Support services:

• Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District wildfire home assessments | Free consultations for local homeowners to review their home and look for ways to make their property more defendable during a wildfire.

• Central Oregon Wildfire Workforce Partnership | Get help with fire fuels reduction (e.g tree thinning, chipping, brush removal, ladder fuels reduction) on private properties throughout in Jefferson, Deschutes, and Crook Counties.

• Central Oregon Prescribed Burn Co-Op | Community-driven initiative to help private landowners use controlled burns as a tool for hazard mitigation and ecological improvement.

• FireFree events (dispose of needles, leaves, branches and brush for free)

Guidance:

• Wildfire-Ready Home Disaster Guide and Wildfire Prepared Home certification (IBHS)

• Preparing Homes for Wildfire (NFPA)

• Fire-resistant plants for home landscapes (OSU Extension)

For your neighborhood:

• Firewise USA

• Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network

• Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire

Personal Preparedness & Education

• Project Wildfire | Deschutes County-specific plans and preparedness resources

• Central Oregon Fire Prevention Coop | Regular fire prevention events and educational opportunities

• Central Oregon Fire Info | “The source for comprehensive fire, health, and air quality information in Central Oregon”

• First Aid Training

  • Northwest Emergency Medical Training

  • Central & Eastern Oregon Red Cross
    
    

In Case of Fire/Emergency

• Sisters Country

  • Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District

  • Cloverdale Fire District

  • Black Butte Ranch Fire District

  • Sisters Ranger District (U.S. Forest Service)

• Regional 

  • Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management Division

  • Deschutes County Search and Rescue

  • Central & Eastern Oregon Red Cross

• State

  • Oregon State Fire Marshal

  • Oregon Department of Forestry

  • Oregon Department of Emergency Management

  • ODHS Office of Resilience and Emergency Management (OREM)

  • Oregon Department of Transportation's tripcheck.com (or call 5-1-1)

Quick hits:

• Building a safer Sisters: Fuels reduction, Firewise, and our path forward (Toby Weiss productions, in partnership with Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District)

• Must-see demo shows how to protect your home from wildfires. (Good Morning America, 7 minutes)

Books:

• Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy, by Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano

• A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, by Rebecca Solnit

• Fire Weather: On the Front Lines of a Burning World, by John Vaillant

• Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, by John Maclean

• Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World, by M.R. O’Connor

• The Big Burn, by Timothy Egan

• The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next, by Steven J. Pyne

Films:

• Rebuilding Paradise (National Geographic)

• Weathered: Inside the LA Firestorm (PBS)

• Bring Your Own Brigade (Paramount+)

• Maui’s Deadly Firestorm (PBS Frontline)

• The Big Burn (PBS)

• Fire Wars (NOVA, 2002)

• The Lost Bus (Apple TV, 2025)
  
  

Articles & Reports:

Local/state reports:

• Greater Sisters Country Community Wildfire Protection Plan (2019)

• Missing the mark: Effectiveness and funding in community wildfire risk reduction (Headwaters Economics)

• Cascading wildfire insurance issues impact local and state budgets (Headwaters Economics)

• Protecting Indoor Air from Wildfire Smoke (OSU Extension Service)

• Food to Fight Wildfires: Nutrition Can Help Protect Your Body When Wildfire Strikes (OSU Extension Service)

Additional research and reports:

• Wildland Fire Embers and Flames: Home Mitigations That Matter (IBHS Research)

• Report: New Wildfire-Resistant Homes Cost Roughly Same as a Typical Home (IBHS Research)

News:

• The California town that kept a record-breaking wildfire at bay (BBC)

• California homeowners will have to fund half of high-risk insurer’s $1 billion ‘bailout’ (Cal Matters)

• New fire maps put nearly 4 million Californians in hazardous zones. What does that mean for the people who live there? (Cal Matters)

• New Oregon wildfire certificates could help homeowners tame rising insurance premiums (OregonLive)

Opinion pieces:

• That Giant Sucking Sound? It’s Climate Change Devouring Your Home’s Value. (NY Times)

• Human use of fire has produced an era of uncontrolled burning: Welcome to the Pyrocene (The Conversation)

• Fire Forged Humanity. Now It Threatens Everything (Scientific American)