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 company ended it for a wildfire related reason, and you need to know what notice you’re owed and where to go next. Oregon wildfire home insurance options answers that one.

The second is getting the house written in the first place. It’s wildland exposed and expensive to rebuild. You want 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’s what’s below.

What changed in Oregon, and what didn’t

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SB 83 repealed the statewide wildfire hazard map.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. 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 didn’t touch the insurance code.

Which leads to 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 a homeowner could look up is gone. The score a company runs on your address isn’t, and it never came from the state map anyway.

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 nobody in the ordinary market has an 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.

Hold that residential figure up against a reconstruction estimate on an expensive Oregon home. On most of these properties $600,000 doesn’t rebuild the house. The FAIR Plan can sit inside a layered structure, but on its own it’s very unlikely to be the answer. Worth knowing it exists. Worth knowing its ceiling before anyone calls it 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. That report covers three things: the admitted market, meaning companies licensed by the state, surplus lines, meaning companies that aren’t, and the FAIR Plan. Source: Oregon DFR, “Wildfires,” dfr.oregon.gov, accessed September 23, 2026. Limits change, so check the current figure with DFR before you rely on it.

A company’s own model versus a public map

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 isn’t a state agency map. A score built from private data, aerial imagery, fuel modeling and proprietary analytics falls outside what the section describes. Oregon law clearly assumes insurers use such scores. 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 it requires disclosure of the methodology, the range of possible scores, and where the property sits in that range.

The list is cancellation, nonrenewal and premium increase. By its own words it doesn’t reach a declination of a new application, meaning a turndown when you apply. 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 a policy you already have. ORS 742.277’s notice requirements get triggered by a cancellation, nonrenewal or premium increase materially related to wildfire risk. Those remedies belong to the recovery article.

For getting a house written, the translation is simple. The number that decides the answer is a model output you can’t look up, built from inputs you can partly control. Fuels and vegetation around the structure, slope and aspect, how well the building resists ignition, access, and the fire response available at the address.

One affirmative Oregon obligation helps here. ORS 737.310(17), added by SB 82, requires an insurer offering homeowner insurance in Oregon to publish on its website 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 doesn’t mandate a credit of any particular size, and we won’t publish one.

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

After SB 83 there’s no statewide defensible space requirement. What exists is a model code a city, county or fire agency may adopt if it wants to, plus a code section for new construction 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’re 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.

One caution. 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, not the model code’s structure. Don’t mix the two 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. 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. It also includes 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’s a fact with a statutory name attached. Those are the facts that survive the trip to an underwriter.

What an OSFM assessment is and isn’t. OSFM offers free defensible space assessments and says in its own press release that they’re “advisory only.” They produce a structured record and a work list. They don’t certify compliance, and they should never be handed to a company as a certificate.

Rural response, and the Oregon vocabulary for it

Oregon is an ISO state. Fire protection classification here comes from Verisk’s Public Protection Classification program, running 1 to 10. Class 1 generally represents superior protection. Class 10 means the area’s fire suppression program doesn’t meet the minimum criteria. That’s the correct term for Oregon. Don’t use it 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’s property specific, so not every property in that band qualifies.
• A hydrant isn’t 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 get treated the same way as standard hydrants. If you have a pond, a cistern or a district drafting point, that’s 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. Anything 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 has to 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. It shows 41 Class 8B communities, which is the profile of a capable department without municipal water. That’s a common rural Oregon situation, and it’s worth saying out loud rather than leaving an underwriter to assume the worst.

Most important: protection class isn’t 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 doesn’t answer the wildfire question, and a poor one doesn’t answer it either. Home insurance with no fire hydrant covers protection class on its own terms.

What you can’t look up, and how to get it anyway

Verisk doesn’t give protection classifications to the public. It supplies them to insurance companies and agents through its subscription service, and it points policyholders back to their insurer or agent.

Three routes work for an Oregon address:

1. Your agent pulls it from a company’s rating system while quoting. Free to you, and it’s the class your 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 and ask three questions. The current classification including the split. Whether the address is within 5 road miles of a responding station. Whether there’s 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. On a remote property, the first question is sometimes whether the address sits inside any structural fire protection district.

The documentation that actually moves an answer

This part is within your control. Put it together before anyone asks, not after a turndown.

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’s there now, gravel, hardscape or bare ground, and what came out.
• 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 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 a fire engine can get through.

A packet like that does two things. It answers questions an underwriter would otherwise answer unfavorably by default, and it shows that somebody maintains the property, which is itself an underwriting fact on this kind of house. It doesn’t promise anyone will write the home. Nothing does.

Where to go from here

If a company 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 expensive 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 goes deeper on access and response.

Want the packet above put together and tested against more than one company before anyone pulls a report on your address? Request a coverage review.