Placing a High Value Oregon Home With a Wildfire Score

Two different Oregon wildfire problems get written about as if they were one.

The first is recovery: you had a policy, a carrier ended it for a wildfire related reason, and you need to know what notice you are owed and where to go next. That problem is covered in Oregon wildfire home insurance options, and this page does not re-answer it.

The second is placement: the home is wildland exposed, it is expensive to rebuild, and you need to know how underwriters look at it, what a wildfire score is built from now that the state map is gone, and what documentation actually changes an answer. That is this page.

What changed in Oregon, and what did not

Oregon passed Senate Bill 82 in 2023 and Senate Bill 83 in 2025, and they do opposite kinds of work.

SB 83 repealed the statewide wildfire hazard map. Section 1 of the enrolled bill repeals the map statute, ORS 477.490, along with the statewide defensible space and home hardening mandates that were wired into it. Section 8 goes further and provides that a State Forestry Department order assigning property to a wildfire hazard zone is null and void. It took effect on passage.

SB 82’s insurance provisions survived. They sit at ORS 742.277 and ORS 742.278, and SB 83 did not touch the insurance code.

The consequence is the sentence Oregon’s own regulator wrote. The Division of Financial Regulation states that the repeal of the state map “does not change the customary practice of insurers using their own proprietary models when making insurance decisions,” and that wildfire risk “is still a very important consideration for insurers, homeowners, and communities.”

So the map that a homeowner could look up is gone. The score a carrier uses on your address is not, and it never came from the state map in the first place.

Everything in this section is information about Oregon law and published regulator guidance, not legal advice.

SB 82 also moved the FAIR Plan, and the number is the point. Oregon’s FAIR Plan is the residual market, the place a property goes when the ordinary market has no answer. The Division of Financial Regulation states that as a nonlegislative component of SB 82 the plan adopted DFR’s proposal to increase residential coverage limits from $400,000 to $600,000, and commercial property limits from $700,000 to $1 million. Read the residential figure against a reconstruction estimate on a high value Oregon home. On most properties in this segment $600,000 does not rebuild the house, which means the FAIR Plan can sit inside a layered structure but is very unlikely to be the placement on its own. It is worth knowing it exists, and worth knowing its ceiling before anyone describes it as a fallback. Oregon’s legislature is watching the same question: SB 829 (2025) requires DFR to report to the Legislature each December on coverage availability and affordability at ZIP code level across the admitted market, surplus lines and the FAIR Plan. Source: Oregon DFR, “Wildfires,” dfr.oregon.gov, accessed September 23, 2026. Limits change, so verify the current figure with DFR before relying on it.

Proprietary modelling versus a public map, and why the distinction matters at placement

ORS 742.278 prohibits an insurance company from using “a map published by an agency of this state that identifies areas of wildfire risk or exposure” as a basis for canceling a homeowner policy, declining to renew one, or increasing a premium.

Three things follow from the actual words.

A vendor model is not a state agency map. A score built from private data, aerial imagery, fuel modelling and proprietary analytics falls outside what the section describes. Oregon law clearly assumes insurers use such scores, because ORS 742.277(2)(c) is written specifically for the case where “the insurer used wildfire risk scores or classifications to assess the property” and requires disclosure of the methodology, the range of possible scores, and the property’s relative position within that range.

The prohibition’s list is cancellation, nonrenewal and premium increase. It does not by its own words reach a declination of a new application. Any writing that says Oregon bans state map use “in underwriting” without that qualifier is overstating the statute.

The disclosure remedies attach to adverse actions on an existing policy. ORS 742.277’s notice requirements are triggered by a cancellation, nonrenewal or premium increase materially related to wildfire risk. Those remedies belong to the recovery article, not this one.

For the placement conversation, the practical translation is simple. The number that decides your file is a model output you cannot look up, built from inputs you can partly control: fuels and vegetation around the structure, slope and aspect, the building’s ignition resistance, access, and the fire response available to the address.

There is one affirmative Oregon obligation that helps at placement. ORS 737.310(17), added by SB 82, requires an insurer offering homeowner insurance in Oregon to make information publicly available on its website about whether and how wildfire risk mitigation actions may affect its underwriting and rates, and to reflect in its underwriting guidelines and rate plans how it addresses mitigation. Read that carefully: it requires consideration and disclosure. DFR’s own summary notes the law provides “flexibility in how this consideration is reflected in an insurer’s decisions.” It does not mandate a credit of any particular size, and we will not publish one.

Defensible space and home hardening: what Oregon publishes, and what carriers read

After SB 83 there is no statewide defensible space requirement. What exists is a model code that a city, county or fire agency may voluntarily adopt, plus a code section for new construction that municipalities may adopt locally.

The model defensible space code. The Oregon State Fire Marshal finalized it and announced completion in May 2026. Its published standards are worth knowing because they are the clearest statement of what Oregon considers defensible space:

• Section 301.2 requires a noncombustible space not less than 5 feet in width around buildings, decks and other development, free of combustible vegetation and accumulations such as needles, leaves, firewood, lumber and bark mulch, with gravel, concrete or bare dirt permitted.
• Section 301.3 sets fuel modification distance by hazard level as determined by the local government: 30 feet at moderate, 50 feet at high, 100 feet at extreme.
• Section 301.4 requires at least 10 feet of horizontal separation crown to crown and crown to structure, powerline and unmodified fuel; trees over 18 feet pruned to 10 feet of clearance from structures and limbed 6 feet from the ground inside the defensible space; trees 18 feet or less limbed to one third of total height.
• Section 101.2 states plainly that adoption by local governments is voluntary and that enforcement is administered by the local jurisdiction.

Note that OSFM’s public education materials use a different three zone framing, the immediate zone at 0 to 5 feet, the intermediate zone at 5 to 30 feet and the extended zone at 30 to 100 feet and beyond. Those are advisory recommendations. They are not the model code’s structure, and the two should not be mixed in a document you hand an underwriter.

Home hardening. Oregon Residential Specialty Code section R327 survived SB 83 as a local option for new construction. The Oregon Building Codes Division has published its adoption for local use and lists a small number of jurisdictions that have adopted it, including Ashland, Deschutes County, Grants Pass and Sisters, with the caveat to check with the local building department about where the requirements apply. That list changes, so verify it rather than quoting it.

Where R327 is adopted, its technical content is a useful specification even for a home outside its scope, because it names the things underwriters ask about: Class B rated or better roof assemblies with wood shingles and shakes prohibited, noncombustible gutters and downspouts with debris protection, ventilation openings covered with corrosion resistant metal mesh between one sixteenth and one eighth inch and no vents on the underside of eaves and soffits, ignition resistant or noncombustible exterior walls, protection for projections and decks between 30 inches and 12 feet above grade, and tempered or multilayered glazing on exterior windows and skylights.

The two designations Oregon law names by name. ORS 742.277(1)(b) defines a wildfire risk mitigation action to include property level actions such as establishing defensible space, hardening a building, or receiving certification from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety for a Wildfire Prepared Home or a similar entity, and community level actions such as recognition as a Firewise USA Site in Good Standing or participation in State Fire Marshal community risk reduction programs. If either applies to your property or your community, that is a fact with a statutory name attached, which is exactly the kind of fact that survives a submission.

What an OSFM assessment is and is not. OSFM offers free defensible space assessments and states in its own press release that they are “advisory only.” They produce a structured record and a work list. They do not certify compliance and should never be presented to a carrier as a certificate.

Rural response, and the Oregon vocabulary for it

Oregon is an ISO state. Fire protection classification here is Verisk’s Public Protection Classification program, which runs 1 to 10 where Class 1 generally represents superior protection and Class 10 indicates the area’s fire suppression program does not meet the minimum criteria. This is the correct term for Oregon and it should not be used for Washington or Idaho, which have their own rating bureaus.

The rules that decide a rural Oregon address:

• Five road miles and 1,000 feet. Verisk states the first number in a split classification applies within 5 road miles of a fire station and within 1,000 feet of a creditable water supply; the second number, carrying an X or Y, applies within 5 road miles but beyond 1,000 feet of creditable water. Verisk says it “generally” assigns Class 10 beyond 5 road miles.
• Class 10W exists for the 5 to 7 mile band. Verisk recognizes that risks more than 5 but less than 7 road miles from a responding station with a creditable water source within 1,000 feet had better loss experience. It is property specific, so not every property in that band qualifies.
• A hydrant is not the only creditable water supply. Verisk states the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule recognizes dry hydrants, suction points, large diameter hose relays and hauled water using tanker shuttles, and that suction points with or without dry hydrants are treated the same way as standard hydrants. For a property with a pond, a cistern or a district drafting point, that is the fact to chase down.
• The X and Y notation replaced the old 9 and 8B split suffixes. A legacy 6/9 is now written 6/6X. Content still using the old convention is describing a superseded notation.
• Class 10 has a staffing floor. Verisk states that to receive better than Class 10, the fire department must demonstrate at least 4 firefighters respond on the initial alarm to all reported structure fires, one of whom may be the chief officer.

Two Oregon specific observations from Verisk’s own distribution chart for the state, read from the 2026 image set on its Facts and Figures page: Oregon shows no Class 1 and no Class 8 communities, and it shows 41 Class 8B communities, which is the profile of a capable department without municipal water. That is a common rural Oregon situation and it is worth naming in a submission rather than leaving the underwriter to assume the worst.

Most important: protection class is not a wildfire score. Verisk states the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule “recognizes fire-protection features only as they relate to suppression of fires in structures.” A strong protection class does not answer the wildfire question, and a poor one does not by itself answer it either. Home insurance with no fire hydrant covers the protection class conversation on its own terms.

What you cannot look up, and how to get it anyway

Verisk does not give protection classifications to the public. It supplies them to insurance companies and agents through its subscription service and directs policyholders to their insurer or agent.

There are three workable routes for an Oregon address:

1. Your agent pulls it from a carrier rating system while quoting. Free to you, and it is the class the premium is actually built on.
2. The responding fire district. Verisk states a customized report is available free of charge to a community’s fire chief or chief administrative official, and Oregon districts routinely publish or share theirs.
3. Call the district directly and ask three questions: the current classification including the split, whether the address is within 5 road miles of a responding station, and whether there is a creditable water supply within 1,000 feet, hydrant, dry hydrant or drafting suction point.

To find out which district responds at all, the Oregon State Fire Marshal publishes structural fire protection agency boundaries and fire station locations through its GIS hub. For a remote property the first question is sometimes whether the address sits inside any structural fire protection district.

The documentation packet that actually moves an answer

This is the part that is within your control. Assemble it before the submission, not after a decline.

The property record

• A current reconstruction cost estimate on the actual home, not a market value or a tax assessment.
• Roof: material, assembly rating, installation date, and product documentation.
• Vents: type, mesh size, and whether any ember resistant vents are installed. Photograph them.
• Siding and skirting material. Deck material and its height above grade.
• Glazing: tempered, multilayered, or otherwise.
• Gutters: material, and whether debris protection is installed.
• Fencing within 5 feet of the structure, and its material.
• Any sprinkler system, exterior sprinklers, or on site water storage with its capacity.

The defensible space record

• Dated photographs of all four elevations and the first 5 feet, before and after any work.
• A written description of the first 5 feet against the model code standard: what is there now, gravel, hardscape or bare ground, and what was removed.
• Fuel modification distance achieved, measured, with slope noted.
• Tree spacing and limb up work, dated.
• Firewood, lumber and propane tank locations and distances.
• A maintenance plan, because defensible space is a condition that decays and underwriters know it.

The third party record

• An OSFM or local fire agency defensible space assessment, labeled as advisory.
• Firewise USA site in good standing documentation, if the community holds it.
• IBHS Wildfire Prepared Home designation, if the property holds it.
• A letter or email from the responding fire district stating the protection class, the road mile distance and the nearest creditable water supply.
• Permits and inspection records for any hardening work, particularly where R327 has been locally adopted.

The access record

• Driveway length, width, surface, grade, and turnaround.
• Vertical clearance over the drive, and any bridge or culvert with a load limit.
• Address signage visible from both directions.
• Gate details, including whether apparatus can get through.

A packet like this does two things. It answers questions the underwriter would otherwise answer unfavorably by default, and it demonstrates that the owner maintains the property, which is itself an underwriting fact in this segment. It does not promise a placement. Nothing does.

Where to go from here

If a carrier has already given you a wildfire score you disagree with, why a wildfire score got your home declined covers that conversation, and Oregon wildfire home insurance options covers the nonrenewal recovery path.

If the home is high value and wildland exposed, the service pages are Oregon private client insurance and wildfire home insurance. For a rural or remote property, rural and remote high value home insurance covers the access and response questions in more depth.

If you want the packet above assembled and tested against more than one appetite before anyone pulls a report on your address, request a coverage review.