State and federal fire agencies across the Pacific Northwest are mobilizing personnel, equipment, and coordination infrastructure ahead of what forecasters are calling a potentially severe 2026 fire season — one that may arrive weeks earlier than historical averages.
The National Interagency Fire Center raised the National Preparedness Level to 2 in early May, reflecting increasing fire activity and resource demand across the country. Two Complex Incident Management Teams are already deployed nationally, and nearly 2,400 personnel are committed to active fire response across all incidents.
Oregon's State Deployment
The Oregon Department of Forestry and Office of the State Fire Marshal have staged approximately 700 wildland firefighters and 300 fire trucks across the state's 16 million acres of protected forestland. The agencies, which received major legislative funding boosts following the catastrophic 2020 Labor Day Fires, have spent the intervening years upgrading equipment, expanding training, and improving interoperability with local fire departments.
Oregon's system now integrates more than 300 local fire departments into its wildland fire response network — a critical element given that many rural communities near fire-prone landscapes have their own initial attack resources that can reach fires before state and federal crews arrive.
Pre-Positioning for Early Start
Fire agency officials have been blunt: the season has effectively already begun. A Level 3 evacuation was issued near La Pine, Oregon, in March — an unusually early indicator of how quickly conditions can deteriorate when snowpack is low and temperatures are above normal. Agencies are adjusting their resource positioning timelines to reflect this earlier-than-normal risk window.
The U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region has confirmed that firefighting and aviation personnel are not among those being reduced in the ongoing agency reorganization, providing some reassurance that federal initial attack crews will be at full capacity on national forest lands in Oregon and Washington.
Air Tanker and Helicopter Readiness
Aerial firefighting resources — including air tankers, single-engine air tankers (SEATs), and helicopters — play a critical role in the Northwest's fire response strategy, particularly when fires ignite in remote wilderness terrain where ground access is limited. Contracts for these aircraft are typically in place heading into fire season, and dispatch centers in Redmond, Oregon, and elsewhere in the region serve as key coordination hubs for regional resource ordering.
Mutual Aid Agreements Active
Oregon and Washington maintain robust mutual aid agreements with neighboring states and Canadian provinces, allowing rapid cross-border resource sharing when local and regional assets become overwhelmed. The Emergency Management Compact and National Interagency Coordination Center protocols ensure that when fires exceed local capacity, additional crews, engines, and equipment can be ordered within hours.
Fire officials are urging communities to treat the resource staging underway not as cause for alarm, but as evidence that the system is functioning as designed — and as a prompt for residents in fire-prone areas to complete their own preparedness steps before the season intensifies.