Detection requirements library

The law this would need in order to exist

A concept draft, written in Legislative Counsel form so its gaps are visible in the places a drafter would look for them. It has not been introduced, no legislator has seen it, and no sponsor is attached. It is here because the programme's hardest dependencies are statutory, and a library that documents only the engineering would be hiding that.

This is not a bill before the Oregon Legislative Assembly

It is a draft written to find out whether the funding mechanism holds together, and it is published in the same spirit as everything else here: so it can be told it is wrong. The bill number is blank because there is no bill. The sponsor lines are blank because there is no sponsor. The bracketed figures — the assessment cap, the credit percentage, the administrative ceiling — are placeholders a drafter would price, not positions anyone has taken.

What this is not, part two. “Legislative Counsel form” describes the formatting, not the authorship: no one at the Oregon Office of the Legislative Counsel has seen this draft, no attorney has reviewed it, and none of the agencies named in it — the State Fire Marshal, DCBS, the PUC, the Department of Aviation — are affiliated with it or aware of it. It is not legal advice. The ORS citations are believed to point at the right statutes but have not been verified against current law; the corrections page exists for exactly that kind of error. Drafted in collaboration with AI and edited by a human, consistent with this site’s editorial standards.

Why a draft at all

The rest of this library documents a machine. None of it addresses the three things that actually decide whether such a machine ever flies over an Oregon county: who holds the federal airspace authorization, who pays for the years in which it is running but has not yet prevented anything measurable, and how the parties who capture the financial benefit — insurers and utilities — contribute without it becoming a subsidy.

Those are statutory questions, and writing them as prose lets them stay comfortable. Writing them as a bill does not: a section either appropriates money or it does not, either names an agency or leaves a blank where the agency should be. The draft below is worth reading for the blanks as much as the text.

One provision is the argument in miniature. Section 6 makes the assessment vanish for any owner who holds a current defensible space certification, and has the state pay it on their behalf so the fire district is not punished for their compliance. That is deliberate: detection technology is worth far less than clearance around a house, and a programme that let public money for drones displace private responsibility for fuel would be making the problem worse while appearing to solve it.

The draft

SUMMARY

Digest: The Act creates a program to help pay for drone systems that find wildfires while the fires are still small. The state pays to buy the systems and to get federal flight approvals. Local fire districts may charge a yearly fee to owners of land in risky areas to run the systems. The state pays the fee for an owner who keeps fire-safe space around the owner’s home. (Flesch Readability Score: 61.2).

Establishes the Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Program within the Department of the State Fire Marshal. Directs the department to fund capital costs of autonomous detection systems and to obtain and hold federal airspace authorizations on behalf of participating local jurisdictions. Authorizes participating jurisdictions to impose an annual detection service assessment on improved parcels within locally designated wildland-urban interface areas, subject to a cap. Provides that the state shall pay the assessment on behalf of an owner whose parcel holds a current defensible space certification. Establishes mechanisms for insurer and electric utility participation. Establishes the Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Fund. Appropriates money. Sunsets January 2, 2034. Declares an emergency, effective July 1, 2027.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

Relating to early detection of wildfire; creating new provisions; appropriating money; and declaring an emergency.

Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:

SECTION 1. Short title. Sections 1 to 11 of this 2027 Act shall be known and may be cited as the Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Act.

SECTION 2. Definitions. As used in sections 1 to 11 of this 2027 Act:

(1) “Autonomous detection system” means an unmanned aircraft system, including a docked or nested aircraft capable of automated launch and recovery, that is operated for the purpose of detecting, confirming or characterizing wildfire ignitions, together with associated sensors, ground infrastructure, communications equipment and software.

(2) “Defensible space certification” means a written determination, issued in accordance with rules adopted under section 6 of this 2027 Act, that a parcel complies with the defensible space standards adopted by the State Fire Marshal under ORS 476.392.

(3) “Department” means the Department of the State Fire Marshal.

(4) “Detection service assessment” means the assessment authorized under section 5 of this 2027 Act.

(5) “Fund” means the Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Fund established under section 9 of this 2027 Act.

(6) “Participating jurisdiction” means a rural fire protection district organized under ORS chapter 478, a county service district providing fire protection, a city fire department or another unit of local government providing structural or wildland fire protection that enters into a program agreement with the department under section 4 of this 2027 Act.

(7) “Qualified contribution” means a voluntary monetary contribution to the fund made by an insurer or an electric utility under section 7 or 8 of this 2027 Act.

(8) “Wildland-urban interface area” means the geographic area designated by ordinance or order of a participating jurisdiction, applying criteria adopted by the department by rule, in which improved parcels are exposed to elevated risk of wildfire spreading from wildland fuels.

SECTION 3. Findings and policy. The Legislative Assembly finds and declares that:

(1) The interval between wildfire ignition and effective initial attack is among the greatest determinants of final fire size, suppression cost and loss of life and property;

(2) Detection technology is a complement to, and not a substitute for, fuel treatment, home hardening and defensible space, and public expenditure on detection should be structured to reinforce, rather than displace, private mitigation responsibility;

(3) The overwhelming majority of structures at risk in the wildland-urban interface are located on private land, and the mitigation decisions that most affect whether a community survives a wildfire are made by private property owners;

(4) The costs of federal airspace authorization, dispatch integration and program administration are most efficiently borne once, at the state level, while recurring operational costs are appropriately shared among the property owners who benefit directly from reduced detection and response times; and

(5) Insurers and electric utilities capture measurable financial benefit from early detection of wildfire and should have practical means to participate in funding detection infrastructure.

SECTION 4. Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Program; state responsibilities.

(1) The Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Program is established within the department.

(2) Under the program, the department shall:

(a) Award grants to participating jurisdictions for the capital acquisition, siting and installation of autonomous detection systems;

(b) In coordination with the Oregon Department of Aviation, apply for, hold and administer on behalf of participating jurisdictions any certificate of waiver or authorization, beyond-visual-line-of-sight approval or other authorization required by the Federal Aviation Administration for operation of autonomous detection systems, so that a participating jurisdiction is not required to obtain such authorizations individually;

(c) Establish and maintain integration between autonomous detection systems and state and interagency dispatch centers and 9-1-1 public safety answering points, including common alerting protocols;

(d) Adopt minimum performance standards for detection latency, coverage area, false-positive rates, cybersecurity and data retention; and

(e) In awarding grants, give priority to jurisdictions serving areas of elevated wildfire hazard and to jurisdictions that demonstrate active community-level mitigation, including participation in recognized community wildfire preparedness programs.

(3) A program agreement between the department and a participating jurisdiction must require the jurisdiction to fund ongoing operation, maintenance and replacement of autonomous detection systems, which the jurisdiction may do in whole or in part through the detection service assessment authorized under section 5 of this 2027 Act.

(4) Data collected by an autonomous detection system under the program is subject to retention and use limitations adopted by the department by rule and may not be used for a purpose unrelated to fire detection, fire investigation or emergency response.

SECTION 5. Detection service assessment.

(1) A participating jurisdiction may, by ordinance or resolution adopted after public hearing, impose an annual detection service assessment on each improved parcel located within a wildland-urban interface area served by an autonomous detection system operated under the program.

(2) The assessment may not exceed $[60] per improved parcel per year. The department shall annually adjust the maximum assessment to reflect inflation.

(3) The assessment shall be certified, collected and enforced in the same manner as other charges of the participating jurisdiction and shall be stated separately on any tax or charge statement.

(4) Moneys from the assessment may be used only for the operation, maintenance, insurance, monitoring and replacement of autonomous detection systems and directly associated dispatch integration costs.

(5) A participating jurisdiction shall provide by ordinance for deferral or waiver of the assessment for owners who qualify for property tax deferral under ORS 311.666 to 311.701.

SECTION 6. Mitigation compliance credit.

(1) Notwithstanding section 5 of this 2027 Act, the owner of an improved parcel that holds a current defensible space certification is not liable for the detection service assessment for any assessment year in which the certification is valid.

(2) For each parcel described in subsection (1) of this section, the department shall pay to the participating jurisdiction, from the fund, an amount equal to the assessment otherwise due, so that the jurisdiction’s operational funding is not reduced by reason of the credit.

(3) A defensible space certification is valid for [three] years from the date of issuance and may be renewed upon reinspection.

(4) The department shall adopt rules governing certification, which may authorize inspection and certification by personnel of a participating jurisdiction, by trained community assessors or by qualified third parties, and which may provide for owner self-certification subject to audit.

(5) It is the intent of the Legislative Assembly that the credit established under this section operate as a standing incentive for parcel-level mitigation, so that public expenditure on detection recruits, rather than substitutes for, the defensible space and home hardening work that most determines structure survival.

SECTION 7. Insurer participation.

(1) An insurer transacting property insurance in this state may make qualified contributions to the fund.

(2) The Department of Consumer and Business Services, in consultation with the department, shall establish a process by which an insurer may, with the consent of the policyholder, verify a parcel’s defensible space certification for the purpose of mitigation-based premium discounts or underwriting decisions.

(3) An insurer that makes qualified contributions to the fund in a calendar year is allowed a credit against the tax imposed under ORS ____ equal to [50] percent of the qualified contributions, not to exceed $[] for the insurer per year and $[] in the aggregate for all insurers per year. The credit shall be claimed in the manner provided by the Department of Revenue by rule.

(4) The Department of Consumer and Business Services shall report biennially to the Legislative Assembly on the relationship between areas covered by autonomous detection systems, defensible space certification rates and the availability and pricing of property insurance in those areas.

SECTION 8. Electric utility participation.

(1) An electric utility, as part of a risk-based wildfire protection plan filed under ORS 757.963, may include contributions to the fund or direct funding of autonomous detection systems serving areas that include the utility’s facilities or service territory.

(2) Amounts described in subsection (1) of this section that are approved as part of a wildfire protection plan are deemed prudent expenditures, and the Public Utility Commission shall allow their recovery in rates.

(3) Detection data generated by systems funded in whole or in part under this section shall be made available to the contributing utility for purposes of situational awareness, asset protection and public safety power shutoff decision-making, subject to the data limitations adopted under section 4 of this 2027 Act.

SECTION 9. Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Fund.

(1) The Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Fund is established in the State Treasury, separate and distinct from the General Fund. Interest earned by the fund shall be credited to the fund.

(2) The fund consists of:

(a) Moneys appropriated or otherwise transferred to the fund by the Legislative Assembly;

(b) Qualified contributions from insurers and electric utilities;

(d) Gifts, grants and donations from any public or private source.

(3) Moneys in the fund are continuously appropriated to the department for:

(a) Capital grants under section 4 of this 2027 Act;

(b) Mitigation compliance credit payments under section 6 of this 2027 Act;

(d) Administrative costs of the department, not to exceed [five] percent of fund expenditures in a biennium.

SECTION 10. Reporting and evaluation.

(1) No later than September 15 of each even-numbered year, the department shall report to the interim committees of the Legislative Assembly related to wildfire on:

(a) The number and location of autonomous detection systems deployed and parcels covered;

(b) The number of ignitions detected, the median interval from ignition to detection and from detection to initial attack, and the number of detected fires contained at initial attack size;

(c) The number of defensible space certifications issued and renewed, and certification rates within covered areas as compared to uncovered areas;

(d) Assessment revenues, mitigation compliance credit payments, qualified contributions and cost per covered parcel; and

(e) Recommendations for modification, expansion or termination of the program.

(2) Before January 1, 2033, the department shall procure an independent evaluation of the program’s effect on fire outcomes, mitigation behavior and insurance availability, for consideration by the Legislative Assembly prior to the operation of section 13 of this 2027 Act.

SECTION 11. Rules. The department, the Department of Consumer and Business Services and the Public Utility Commission may adopt rules necessary to carry out the provisions of this 2027 Act.

SECTION 12. Appropriation. In addition to and not in lieu of any other appropriation, there is appropriated to the Department of the State Fire Marshal, for the biennium beginning July 1, 2027, out of the General Fund, the amount of $[12,500,000], which shall be deposited in the Wildfire Early Detection Partnership Fund.

SECTION 13. Sunset. Sections 1 to 11 of this 2027 Act are repealed on January 2, 2034.

SECTION 14. Captions. The unit captions used in this 2027 Act are provided only for the convenience of the reader and do not become part of the statutory law of this state.

SECTION 15. Emergency clause. This 2027 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2027 Act takes effect July 1, 2027.

Source of record: specs/wildfire-early-detection-partnership-act.md. Reproduced here in full below its title block. Again, and last: no such bill has been introduced.