We are in the middle of a raging fire season. Let’s hope you’re already subscribed to Deschutes Alerts or the notifications on the Watch Duty app to help you stay abreast of fires that may crop up near you. Most alerts come because you subscribed to that system. As fires get bigger and hotter and the fire seasons last longer, it only gets more important to do so.
But there are alerts, and then there are Alerts — and as most people who were in Deschutes County Aug. 7 now know, you don’t want to miss either one. On Aug. 7, a fire broke out near Arnold Ice Cave, close to the areas of China Hat, Horse Ridge and Swamp Wells, where plenty of people ride bikes, hike and take off-highway vehicles to recreate. If you were out there that Friday, officials with the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office wanted to be doubly sure that you knew about the Level 3 — Go Now — evacuations that were quickly announced for that area. While the typical Deschutes Alerts system would have warned you, too, officials were worried that people who don’t live here and come here for recreation wouldn’t get the word in time. As a result, the sheriff’s office made the rare call to use the Wireless Emergency Alert system, a federal program meant to warn people of danger, including “imminent threats” like the Hidden Forest Fire.
“The China Hat area is heavily used for recreation, so there is a high likelihood of tourists and visitors without access to Deschutes Alerts,” DSCO officials wrote. “Sending a WEA ensures we reach anyone who might be in the area or heading there to recreate.”
Seems pretty straightforward, and yet, it caused some to complain. Why were they getting the alert in Redmond, nowhere near the fire, for example?
Basically, the WEA taps nearby cell towers to send the signal to any phones within reach of that tower. In this case, the alert went out to the entire county — hence, why someone in Redmond would get the alert even while being ostensibly out of danger.
In theory, every phone in the county should have gotten that alert, but there are some reasons why people may not have. Phones set to off or airplane mode, those connected to a virtual private network and phones that are opted out of receiving alerts (typically found in the notification settings menu) are some of the reasons a phone may not have issued the alert, according to guidance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
So now you know.
In a dry forest in August, fire is an imminent danger, and anyone recreating there should be equipped with the right information to help keep them safe. Signing up for Deschutes Alerts will give you timely information about anything that crops up in Deschutes County, but Jefferson and Crook counties have their own citizen emergency notification systems for those residents, too. On top of that is the federal tool that officials have used sparingly, but in this case, appropriately.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
