CORVALLIS, Ore. — More than a year after wildfires devastated Oregon’s Santiam Canyon, a report from Oregon State University paints a difficult picture: Residents continue to struggle with housing, bureaucracy, health concerns and the trauma of losing their homes.
"One thing that really came across is just the excruciating chronic stress that these folks were dealing with on a daily basis, in the context of the trauma they experienced — losing their homes, losing all their possessions, fearing for their lives."
For the Santiam Canyon Community Health Impact Assessment, OSU researchers surveyed and interviewed dozens of residents, community leaders and agency personnel. They heard firsthand how the 2020 wildfires continue to affect survivors’ physical and mental health.
“One thing that really came across is just the excruciating chronic stress that these folks were dealing with on a daily basis, in the context of the trauma they experienced — losing their homes, losing all their possessions, fearing for their lives,” said Sandi Phibbs, co-author of the report and innovation, evaluation and research manager in OSU’s Center for Health Innovation.
The Labor Day fires of 2020 burned more than a million acres in Oregon, killed at least nine people and destroyed thousands of homes. The Santiam Canyon towns of Detroit, Gates and Mill City were among the most severely affected.
Researchers focused on Santiam Canyon because Marion County received community development block grant funding and asked OSU Extension to partner on the study. They examined five areas of concern: environmental health; housing; mental and behavioral health; food security; and personal health.
Environmental health concerns
Detroit lacked functioning infrastructure for drinking water until seven months after the fire. While the water now meets safety standards, residents remain hesitant to trust it, said co-author Amanda Rau, Extension regional fire specialist.
Air quality also remains a concern. Before the fires, 28% of survey respondents reported breathing difficulties; after the fires, that number jumped to 55%. Current air monitors do not measure heavy metals released from burned buildings, Rau noted.
“They were still sick because they were breathing in heavy metals and other contaminants stirred up by wind from the buildings that burned, but that’s not being tested for or accounted for,” she said. “So residents are controlling what they think they can control — water — but they’re actually suffering from what they can’t control.”
Housing and displacement
More than 700 families lost their homes. A year later, only 13% of displaced households managed by the Santiam Service Integration Team had entered permanent housing. The rest were still living in temporary arrangements such as hotels, RVs or with friends, while others had left the canyon entirely.
In a focus group interview, one Canyon resident described the impact: “The way I describe it is I feel like I’ve been erased … I just look around where I’m staying now, and I just feel like my whole life has been erased. Because I can’t go back and tell any stories about where this came from, and this belonged to your great-grandmother … so what happened to my life? It’s gone.”
Housing shortages also affect diet and exercise. Limited space in RVs, for example, makes it difficult for families to cook healthy meals or stay active, said principal investigator Marc Braverman, a professor and Extension research and evaluation specialist in OSU’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences.
Bureaucracy and financial hurdles
Residents also expressed frustration in focus groups about rebuilding paperwork, which often required multiple rounds of verification.
“It’s literally a roller coaster that you have to live 15 times over. Because each agency wants verification,” one participant said. “And I mean, you give up. You give up after the fourth time.”
Appraisals have also been difficult to obtain since the fires destroyed most nearby homes that could have served as “comparables.” At the same time, construction costs rose about 25% in the year following the fires. Many insurance policies do not cover critical infrastructure such as wells or septic systems.
Recommendations for recovery
The report outlines several strategies to help communities recover and prepare for future disasters:
- Streamline paperwork where possible.
- Address shortages of mental health providers in rural areas.
- Create a health registry to track survivors.
- Develop stronger emergency response plans in advance of disasters.
“We need to be prepared to support the people who are most vulnerable, especially in rural communities in Oregon,” Rau said. “Having services set up in advance for people to go for support for trauma, so they can get healed emotionally to be able to deal with the recovery process and life after the fire.”
Co-authors of the report include Phibbs, Rau, Braverman and OSU public health graduate student Elijah Penner.
Previously titled OSU report: Post-2020 wildfires, Santiam Canyon residents burned out by trauma, red tape
