Looking to escape the wildfires in Southern Oregon (Portland, Eugene: for sale, crime)

[tsigon]

Greetings,

I moved to Grants Pass in 2018 from the the North East in order to get away from the cold winters there. I've loved the climate here in Southern Oregon, however I haven't been able to get used to the smoke and wildfires. They seem to be getting worse and so I'm looking to relocate once again, however I still want to stay in OR.

I had a look at the wildfire risk map for OR and it appears that the Willamette valley is considered low risk and so I've been considering the cities of Eugene, Corvallis, Albany, and Salem (I'm not interested in Portland).

I have briefly visited Eugene and Salem and driven through Corvallis but not seen any of Albany. My concerns are about the homelessness which is a ubiquitous problem all over the West Coast and even here in Grants Pass, however I have read that it is worse the closer one gets to Portland.

How bad is it in Salem? Is crime getting worse? Is it bad enough that people are leaving the city?

Also how have the fire seasons been in Salem? Do you get a lot of smoke from fires from elsewhere?

Thank you

[Metlakatla]

It's only a matter of time.

My sister lives near Salem. She spent three days last summer hosing down her horses to keep them from dying from the heat.

When we were kids, our home didn't even have AC. Didn't need it.

[Silverfall]

So the state just came out with a fire risk map as they are working on defensible boundaries. This might be helpful for you in figuring out where you want to land. https://tools.oregonexplorer.info/OE...iewer=wildfire

Eugene has one of the highest homeless populations per capita in the US. Way more than Salem, Corvallis or Eugene. I don't know that it gets worse as you head north, but more about how each city has chosen to handle it.

Salem is growing and gaining population. Are people leaving because of the homeless? Probably. Are people coming here to escape climate change? Yes. We have positive migration into Salem.

Salem has had an increase in crime since Covid. We are growing so fast and there is a police officer shortage here. As a result, we have had an increase in crime. I drive all over the city for work, eat downtown, and have homeless people sleep on my front porch at my office building. I feel safe in Salem, but I have no problem going up to the homeless people using my hose bib for a shower at my office and asking them what they are doing. You can go all sorts of places in the city and enjoy yourself, but you will likely see homeless people walking around carrying their stuff.

That said, at our 2022 Point-In-Time survey for homelessness, Salem, for the first time in a long time, had more sheltered homeless than unsheltered. So that was progress.

I have lived here for 23 years, and have only smelled forest fires once, which was the Beechie Creek Fire. Otherwise, I've only smelled forest fire when I went out toward Stayton and beyond during fire season. We have obviously had fires in the city, that will cause smoke, but we don't get forest fire smell here. It is indeed getting hotter and I expect that the Silverton and Stayton areas will have increasing ash/smoke over time.

[tsigon]

Thank you for your replies. I am cautiously optimistic about Salem for the short to medium term, but I know that it's only a matter of time before it gets bad even there. I suppose eventually even rainy Seattle will end up having regular fire seasons.

p.s. I have also broadened my search to include Olympia WA. Any thoughts on that city vs Salem?

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by tsigon

Thank you for your replies. I am cautiously optimistic about Salem for the short to medium term, but I know that it's only a matter of time before it gets bad even there. I suppose eventually even rainy Seattle will end up having regular fire seasons.

p.s. I have also broadened my search to include Olympia WA. Any thoughts on that city vs Salem?

It's not that "Seattle will eventually have regular fire seasons". Seattle gets choked with smoke when BC has wildfires, especially if it happens in combination with eastern WA having fires. Combine that with a summer heat wave (this occurred one September a few years ago: a double-whammy. Actually it happened a couple of summers), and life can become insufferable. People with health issues, heart disease, etc. were getting calls from their doctors to evacuate the entire region, and go find fresh air.

The entire West Coast has an extended dry season, now stretching from early May through September, typically.

[Silverfall]

Originally Posted by tsigon

Thank you for your replies. I am cautiously optimistic about Salem for the short to medium term, but I know that it's only a matter of time before it gets bad even there. I suppose eventually even rainy Seattle will end up having regular fire seasons.

p.s. I have also broadened my search to include Olympia WA. Any thoughts on that city vs Salem?

A lot of people look at Salem and Olympia at the same time. I have been to Olympia but really haven't looked around in a "I might want to live here" kind of way. What people have consistently told me is that Salem has a better downtown and Olympia has better access to nature (which it does).

I don't follow the projections for Washington, but the long-term projections for Salem, climate-wise, are that we will have more storms (ie intense downpours/ice storms/etc) and have drier and hotter summers. So we will get our water, but have it in shorter periods of time.

[NW4me]

Originally Posted by tsigon

Thank you for your replies. I am cautiously optimistic about Salem for the short to medium term, but I know that it's only a matter of time before it gets bad even there. I suppose eventually even rainy Seattle will end up having regular fire seasons.

p.s. I have also broadened my search to include Olympia WA. Any thoughts on that city vs Salem?

Diana Holbrook could answer your questions about Olympia:

www.city-data.com/forum/members/diana-holbrook-1956312.html

[leastprime]

Salem terminal flora is mixed conifers and oak savannah.
Puget Sound flora is mixed conifers with preference to hemfir and cedar.

I find that there is a noticeable difference in the summer humidity between Salem vs PS.
with Salem & willamette valley significantly less humid. You can have 75 weather in PS and be very warm. About 5 degrees difference with warmer temp in Salem, in summer. Slightly warmer in PS than Salem in the winter.

Only a handful of times of forest fire smoke in my 65 years in Salem. Oddly the smoke came from eastern WA and central OR through the Gorge.
A few times from grass fires. There used to be a lot field burns on the grass seed fields and even the wheat fields. Most of my life was in west Salem in the Eola Hills.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by tsigon

Greetings,

I moved to Grants Pass in 2018 from the the North East in order to get away from the cold winters there. I've loved the climate here in Southern Oregon, however I haven't been able to get used to the smoke and wildfires. They seem to be getting worse and so I'm looking to relocate once again, however I still want to stay in OR.

I had a look at the wildfire risk map for OR and it appears that the Willamette valley is considered low risk and so I've been considering the cities of Eugene, Corvallis, Albany, and Salem (I'm not interested in Portland).

I have briefly visited Eugene and Salem and driven through Corvallis but not seen any of Albany. My concerns are about the homelessness which is a ubiquitous problem all over the West Coast and even here in Grants Pass, however I have read that it is worse the closer one gets to Portland.

How bad is it in Salem? Is crime getting worse? Is it bad enough that people are leaving the city?

Also how have the fire seasons been in Salem? Do you get a lot of smoke from fires from elsewhere?

Thank you

You should consider the Central or Northern Coast. Wildfires in the Coastal Range are rare and limited compared to the Cascades. Except for 2020 I have never seen wildfire smoke to be a problem here on the Coast. Yes, you see smoky sky and red sunsets on the Coast, but the smoke is generally at a pretty high elevation, so it doesn't really affect the local air quality much. If you want to get away from it completely, you should return to the East Coast.

The wildfire risk for the Willamette Valley is low, but that doesn't mean that you won't see a lot of smoke from wildfires in the Cascades.