Another fire season has arrived, and with it comes a familiar anxiety for me and my husband, along with our neighbors at Crooked River Ranch.

My longtime home sits on the Deschutes Canyon rim near the Deschutes Canyon-Steelhead Falls Wilderness Study Area. These nearby public lands are one of the main reasons we chose to build here decades ago.

We very much want to see our local public lands protected, and we want them managed more responsibly when it comes to fire prevention.

That is why I am so disappointed that Rep. Greg Walden continues to push his Crooked River Ranch Fire Protection Act as-is, instead of pulling together a proposal that would actually address our concerns.

Rep. Walden’s current approach lacks broad community support, and is unlikely to achieve its stated purpose of improved fire protection.

Removing 832 acres from the wilderness study area, as Rep. Walden’s bill proposes, would not automatically result in better fire protection for Crooked River Ranch.

The Bureau of Land Management’s policy for this study area already suppresses all fires aggressively due to the close proximity of ranch homes.

There is also no guarantee that Rep. Walden’s bill will result in the needed fire prevention through juniper thinning, or “fuels reduction.”

Fuels reduction projects can cost thousands of dollars per acre and any thinning would likely require an environmental assessment before it could proceed, adding further expense.

How would these significant costs be paid for? Under the bureau’s current staffing and funding levels, fuels reduction is unlikely to ever happen with Rep. Walden’s approach.

In addition, private landowners must play a role in helping to protect their homes. As The Bulletin noted in a recent editorial, firefighters were better able to save Three Rivers homes from the Graham Fire where homeowners had cleared combustible material from their property.

Although Crooked River Ranch has done a great job of thinning community property belonging to the homeowners’ association, most individual landowners on the canyon rim have done no fuels reduction.

This is understandable given that many residents lack the money or the physical ability to do the necessary work. It’s clear a broader community effort is needed.

Rep. Walden, however, is currently ignoring the most compelling strategy to address the community’s concerns about wildfire.

In 2015, stakeholders came together to consider ways to address the threat of wildfire and, at the same time, improve the management of public lands on Crooked River Ranch’s west side.

These collaborative discussions resulted in a growing consensus that creating a buffer zone for fire protection directly abutting Crooked River Ranch could be coupled with permanent protection for the remaining wilderness study area and other unprotected portions across the Deschutes River, including much-loved and frequently visited places such as Alder Springs and Lower Whychus Creek.

Additionally, there was discussion about ways to fund fuel treatments on both private and public land through grants or even legislation.

This balanced and reasonable approach could gain support from most people at Crooked River Ranch and throughout Central Oregon.

At a town hall meeting in 2016, Rep. Walden told me he would be willing to consider changes to his bill to address the concerns that I and many others in the community have raised.

I am still waiting.

I urge Rep. Walden to stay true to his word and work with senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to craft a more balanced approach that addresses the needs of all stakeholders and that will result in fire protection for Crooked River Ranch.

Anything less isn’t helping ranch residents like me.

— Marilynne T. Keyser lives in Crooked River Ranch.