Episode # 20 | Season 3: Derek Burkhardt and Allison Rayburn “Rural Fire Protection Associations”

Funding Rural | Episode #20 | Season 3: Derek Burkhardt and Allison Rayburn “Rural Fire Protection Associations”

Funding for disaster response is much needed in the American West where vast rangeland ignites quickly under dry conditions. In Eastern Oregon, innovative Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) bring together local ranchers and state resources to work collaboratively when fires break out. Derek Burkhardt is a 4th generation rancher and farmer from Vale, Oregon who is in a leadership role with his two local RFPAs, and Allison Rayburn is the Oregon Dept of Forestry’s Rangeland Fire Program Coordinator. They share their motivations, recent firefighting experiences, and wish lists.

“There’s a lot of things I need to be doing, but how do you not go help your neighbor when they need help?”—Derek Burkhardt

Apple |  Spotify |  Amazon & Audible | iHeart | YouTube

About Derek Burkhardt

Allison Rayburn is the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) Rangeland Fire Program Coordinator. The ODF Rangeland Fire Program assists the 1,200 volunteers who make up 28 Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPAs) in eastern Oregon with training, acquiring state and federal excess firefighting equipment, administrative support, radio programming and coordination with cooperators on and off the fire line.
Allison grew up in Dallas, Oregon. She started her career with ODF on the Dallas Fire Crew in 1998, while earning a bachelor’s degree from Western Oregon University. Over the last 27 years she has worked as a firefighter, fire crew supervisor, dispatcher, administrative assistant and fire manager.
In 2019, she relocated to John Day as the Unit Manager and began working with RFPAs. In 2023 she was hired as the ODF Rangeland Fire Program Coordinator. After 24 years of providing wildland fire protection for Oregon forest landowners, she finds it most rewarding to utilize her wildland fire experience to support volunteer rangeland owners in providing their own fire protection.

“We have 1000s of volunteer hours go into fires, but I truly believe they could be more effective with the time they volunteer if they had the tires to get them there, the adequate pumps when they arrive, and the fire dedicated dozer or transport.”  —Allison Rayburn

Discussion Questions

• As Derek mentioned, RFPA’s oftentimes have wish lists of needed supplies like fuel and tires. Are you in the practice of asking for wish lists from your potential funding partners? Filling these requests can make a major difference on the front lines of fires and community service.
• This episode touched on the rural ethos of helping others even if you don’t agree. Could you list a few organizations you may not agree with, but you see the merit and positive change that could come with more support?

Resources

• https://www.flipsnack.com/highdesertpartnership/rangeland-fire-protection-association-2024-newsletter/full-view.html
• RFPAs Receive Funding, Recognition from Oregon Legislature : Newsroom : Events & Resources : High Desert Partnership
• They Deserve Every Bit of Praise RFPA Newsletter_2025
• RFPA Newsletter_2025

“It’s all just about protecting what each of us own and our livelihoods” —Derek Burkhardt

Transcript: Episode #20 | Season 3: Derek Burkhardt and Allison Rayburn “Rural Fire Protection Associations“

Erin Borla 0:10
It’s funding rural I’m Erin Borla with the Roundhouse foundation in sisters Oregon. Today I want to highlight an innovative Oregon program that’s worth noting for any philanthropy that’s interested in disaster response, especially in wildfire country. It started in rural eastern Oregon, where counties are the size of whole states. I’m not kidding. Malheur County is the size of Maryland. This is the kind of country that burns fast. Wildfire races across the open sagebrush. It’s fueled by hot winds and dry conditions. Fighting fire in country this vast, with so few population centers or resources, necessitated innovation. So that’s what folks in Oregon did. They banded together to save their homes, their land and livestock. They formed what are called rangeland fire protection associations, or rfpas, as we’ll be referring to them in this episode. Rfpas are nonprofit organizations made up of volunteer first responders, mainly local ranchers and farmers who drop everything to help fight fires in their area. There are 28 of them in Eastern Oregon, and they cover 17 and a half million acres of public and private land. Historically, these volunteers have fought fire on their own dime, using their own equipment, with help from donations and grants. This year, the state legislature passed a new bill that will give a major boost of support to these volunteer efforts, and we’ll get into that with our guests joining me today are Derek Burkhart and Allison Rayburn. Derek is a fourth generation rancher and farmer from Vail, Oregon, who is in a leadership role with his two local rfpas and has fought a lot of fire, especially in recent years. Allison is the Oregon Department of forestry’s rangeland Fire Program Coordinator. Her job is to support folks like Derek doing the work on the ground. I started off by asking Derek about the cow valley fire in 2024 it burned more than 130,000 acres, including Derek’s ranch.

Derek Burkhardt 2:14
Well, it was technically the second fire of the day. We woke up early that morning getting called to the Bonita fire, which was just southwest of the cow valley fire. It was kind of a part of the chain of fires that were started that morning. I guess that have been July 11 of 2024 so we actually, that year, had some equipment ready, and we’re out there very early, and on the way home, that’s when we discovered that we had kind of been at the wrong fire. The Cal Valley Fire was right in the evening in our area. The winds start to pick up. That’s when the fires are about at their worst. And yeah, we’re coming home and realize, Wow, the Cal Valley Fire is ripping towards our ranch. We were able to get there probably 30 minutes before it touched our property, and were able to get some cattle moved, and actually barely got them moved out of the way as it came burning across. Luckily that spring, we had turned down in a corral, so everything was grazed down along our one main road. So we were able to push all the cattle into there and kept fighting it, not realizing that it had looped around and was burning from both sides. Yeah, pretty, pretty wild, really, to go through that. Mean, I’ve fought a lot of fire since I was young, but never been a part of one that it was as fast the wind The when it crest the top of the hill, the fire tornadoes from the current, some stuff just there was nothing they could do. And at that point in time, the smoke had gotten so out of hand that the air support that we had a few hours before on the Bonita fire was no longer available, or it wasn’t safe enough to utilize it. The Bonita fire was one of the most amazing air shows for firefighting that I had seen. And it was too bad that we couldn’t get it on the Cal Valley Fire, because we if we could have stopped it right up, my ranch is on the south side of the highway, and if we could have stopped it there, it has saved, yeah, probably saved, 100,000 acres, but we just couldn’t the wind was was too strong. Just melted the asphalt when it crossed the cross the highway. It was that hot. Oh my gosh, it was pretty wild.

Erin Borla 4:34
So Allison, I’d love for you to talk a little bit. You mentioned that there’s volunteers, and for folks that don’t know what an rfpa is it’d be helpful to understand how the private landowners participate in this work and what the partnership is with odf and then other forest and firefighting agencies.

Allison Rayburn 4:53
Sure, a lot of I would say Oregonians, but a lot of people don’t. Don’t, I think, don’t realize that there’s a lot. You know, there’s millions of acres in Oregon. There’s 1000s of landowners that don’t have fire protection. So in the state of Oregon, there’s agencies that protect public lands, but private land is either protected by a rural fire district or the Oregon Department of Forestry, if you’re classified as forest land. But there are, you know, millions of acres that are not in a rural fire district. They’re not populated enough, and they’re not forest land. A lot of that southeast Oregon and orange land. When you call 911, there’s, there’s no fire protection. And so starting in 1963 landowners in Oregon worked with the legislature to get a statute that allows them to form rangeland Fire Protection Association. So they’re they’re pure volunteer. They only exist in Eastern Oregon, and they are to protect rangelands, not structures. There was a change in the statute in 2021 that expanded the definition to also include croplands. So we’ve had some additional rfpas form in Central Oregon, including lower bridge and up in the gorge, up in the Petersburg area, that now meet the definition, since it’s expanded to cropland. But you know, these are citizens, landowners, neighbors that don’t have other fire protection. And so they ask the state of Oregon to form an rfpa, and they volunteer their time to become as they’re required to be nonprofit organizations. So there’s a number of, you know, administrative tasks that come along with that, forming boards, you know, budgeting, having membership meetings, and then they acquire equipment through very limited budgets. So not only are they volunteer, but the primary funding source of an rfpa is voluntary membership dues. So the organization sets their dues rate per per member. And you know, some of them is donation only. Right now we’re up to some are $500 a member, but it’s pretty minimal funding from the landowners themselves to acquire equipment and maintain that equipment and provide the fueling to go and respond to the, you know, to the fires themselves. So what we do at the Oregon Department forestry, we started out with one person, and we’re up to a staff of six now that provides support, paid agency support, to these volunteers. So like you say, by statute, we help them, we put on training. By our training for them, we help them acquire equipment, and we reimburse them for liability insurance. But one of the main things we do is help them coordinate with their cooperators, with who they’re going to be working with when they’re out fighting fires. And so we’re helping, you know, at the annual meetings, at their trainings, bring in those local cooperators. There’s, you know, 11 and a half million acres of Bureau of Land Management land within rfpa boundaries that these volunteer landowners are responding to fires. So that’s one of their primary firefighting partners, is the Bureau of Land Management, but they neighbor up against and have agreements with the Forest Service and the Oregon Department of Forestry as well. So we focus on helping them respond to initial attack. So you know, if a call first comes in, we often have landowners that are could be closer than agency facilities. They might be more familiar with the ground, depending on the agency and that, you know, the paid staffing. And so we focus on on getting them ready for that initial attack, getting them tied in with dispatch center, so they get the call, go to the call, and provide that initial attack alongside paid partners. That can be challenging, but we focus on that, and I think we’ve made a lot of progress, especially in the last 10 or 15 years, getting the agency personnel familiar with the RFA system, with the training, with the personnel. But what we’re seeing is the acre the size of fires and the acres burned just keeps increasing year after year, and we’re finding these volunteers are getting involved in these large incidents, and that’s an even bigger challenge than the initial attack.

Erin Borla 9:06
Yeah, Derek, we, we heard from Allison about, sort of, what an what, what, in theory, the rfpa is do, right? What odf believes that rfpa is, do you’re on the ground. What’s the what does it actually look like? What what happens?

Derek Burkhardt 9:23
It’s all about community. We all our rural areas are so tight knit that, yeah, it’s all just about protecting our private ground. And we don’t really even care what ground it is. It’s just protecting the area in general. It can be public, it can be private, it could be whatever, and that’s really what our focus is. Is just neighbors helping neighbors. We’re kind of a renegade group. I mean, everybody has some people are more active. Some aren’t, but we all just work together for the better. I mean, it’s amazing. Sometimes we have a ton. A volunteer show up and get right to work. And sometimes harvest season, I mean, it takes an hour or so to get to come help, but yeah, it’s all about just helping each other out. We’re very fortunate. We get along well with our local BLM and our rural fire departments and stuff. So, I mean, we all grew up together, so we just went instead of being farmers, ranchers, some of them are firefighters, and so we all just work together, super, super well, yeah, it’s all just about protecting what each of us own and our livelihoods.

Erin Borla 10:33
So, so when a call comes in for a fire, or is it often like, do you do you get a call, or do you see the fire? What like, how does that happen? On in logistically,

Derek Burkhardt 10:43
a mix of everything, really, depending on the location. I mean, it’s probably an even split on if I get a sheriff’s dispatch text or a call or a BLM call or text, sometimes it’s watch duty, if they didn’t get it told out soon enough, where we’re relying on watch duty, a lot of the times it’s private landowners calling they, they generally call it into the sheriff’s office or the BLM, and then start calling all the neighbors to come but yeah, this last one last week, was a neighbor that, yeah, we were way faster than everybody else. Yes, because it was that fast, she called us, and yeah, it was. That was a pretty good showing, though, to have, I think we had six or seven different entities all show up and working together. So that’s pretty amazing to be have that much involvement

Erin Borla 11:40
well, and then once the other agencies join the party, like, how does that transition? At what point? How do you work together? What’s the handoff? Do you stay on board?

Derek Burkhardt 11:52
Generally, we stay on board when the actual firefighters show up, because we’re not firefighters. We’re just the first responders that do the best we can usually when BLM or odf, or anybody that’s an actual firefighter shows up, we pass the torch off to them. It also depends on the ground. This year has been a little bit different, where we’re actually kind of labeling, okay, it’s all private. This is an rfpa fire. You guys are 100% in charge. Here’s how much we can help public ground. We pass it off to them, and then, depending on our time and what we got going on, we stick around as long as we can to help and assist. And we’ve even this year, I’ve spent over 24 hours straight on a fire, just because the BLM, there’s been a lot of fires this year, so they’re scattered. So we actually have some water tenders this year that have been a huge help, because we just don’t have any water. So being able to take water with you to help fight and we filled up a lot of other entity fire trucks this year with them. So yep, we pass it off when we can. But if there’s nobody there, our local people are pretty dang good they if they realize that they don’t know the ground as good as us, if it’s on a BLM permit or whatever, they still ask us for our what our opinion is and all that kind of stuff. So that’s pretty nice to be respected enough to be valued.

Erin Borla 13:16
So yeah. Well, and as a volunteer, you’re also running your ranch and probably wearing five other hats at the same time. So how are you balancing, especially during fire season, how do you balance doing all the things

Derek Burkhardt 13:31
there was a lot of personal neglect on things last year especially. I mean, there’s a lot of things I need to be doing, but how do you not go help your neighbor when they need help? So you kind of, you just don’t sleep as much and do your stuff at night when you finally get home, if you may, get home, and you just kind of do the best you can. You keep the cattle fed. But if water didn’t get changed that day, then well, water didn’t get changed that day. And yeah, we put a lot of our personal to do lists aside, but it’s a balance, like after the Cal valley fire last year, we had to take two days just to focus on our cattle and get them to a safe spot and get them to feed and get them handled. Then once that was done, we went right back into firefighting, because it was just a drag of continuous it never stopped. It seemed like,

Erin Borla 14:21
yeah, yeah. I would imagine that is it’s difficult to even find the time. I mean, running a ranch by itself without adding firefighting on top of it is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week gig, no time off. So certainly appreciate all you’re doing, and know that the neighbors are also appreciating what you do, and I’m sure they’re doing the same for you.

Derek Burkhardt 14:43
Yep, nope. It’s give and take. It’s a Yeah. It almost means more when it’s your neighbor burning versus yourself. I mean, you just you can’t help but care. So yeah.

Erin Borla 14:57
Well, Allison, I want to bring you back in here. To help us zoom out a little bit more on the program as a whole. Talk a little bit about your role, specifically working with the rfpas and the interface. I know you’re helping support some training and other things. Can you talk about some of the projects that you get to do with these volunteer groups? Sure.

Allison Rayburn 15:20
Yeah. I mean, one of the main things we do is provide training. So to be a volunteer firefighter on private land in Oregon, there’s really minimal training requirements. So the main requirements come in with their federal agreements. So for them to be able to fight fire on federal ground, they’re actually with it through agreements, able to go on to BLM ground, where they have, you know, grazing allotments, or where that, you know, there’s just a threat to the fire coming off to their property or their community, they’re able to go on to Forest Service ground. It requires them to take a one time basic fire training. You know, we train on fuel, weather, topography and firefighting tactics, and then there’s an annual refresher requirement. And I think that’s where, really the main benefit is that we focus on is, is that that annual refresher, it’s a touch base before every season, we can reflect on last season, what went well, what didn’t, what do we need to improve on, whether it’s working with aircraft or the biggest thing is communications, whether it’s they’re working with each other or, especially when it comes to integrating with other agencies, communication is key, and so we do a lot of radio training make, you know, getting them set up, making sure they’re getting those initial calls from dispatch and they’re able to relay the information to and from the other agencies and resources responding. So that’s a, you know, big focus for the training aspect of it. You know, equipment. Like I said, the Department of Forestry started with one person to support, basically the formation of rfpas, and we, in recently expanded after the 2021, legislative session, and added three, what we call specialists that support a subgroup of the rfpas. So specifically, providing that training when and where it works for them, and customizing the topics for the associations also really focusing on equipment. And I mean that is key to a landowner helping protect their property or their community is having the tools to do it, having the water trucks. And so, like I said, RFAs are really minimally funded. You know, their membership dues might bring in 10,000 a year. The state reimburses them for their liability insurance, but up until the House bill, we haven’t provided them any operating costs. And so their other funds come from donations. Sometimes large landowners or the community will make direct donations, and then grants. We a primary grant is the federal volunteer fire capacity grant that’s been supporting the RFP programs and the Department of Forestry, although its federal funds administers that grant. And so we help work with the rfpas to get be eligible and to submit those applications, and then looking for other funds, which after, especially after the 2024 fire season, there’s been a lot more awareness of RFAs and the role they played, and so like the Roundhouse foundation reached out and connected, and that’s been a huge funding support for the rfpas, as well as the Oregon disaster funders network. And we’re partnering with like sage con and OSU and looking for additional funding sources that ties back into helping them acquire equipment when they’re operating off budgets of 10 to $20,000 a year, it’s challenging for us to find the firefighting equipment within those within that budget. So primarily we focus on federal excess equipment, so former military equipment for more forest service equipment, you know, federal equipment that we can get for shipping costs only if it’s put into service for firefighting. So it’s been really successful. Got a lot of good equipment, but note that that does take time to convert, especially if it’s military equipment, to convert it into firefighting equipment, they’re having to add tanks, pumps, you know, hose reels, to this equipment. And there’s usually when, by the time it’s federally excess, there’s a lot of maintenance involved. So we’re looking for additional opportunities and equipment for them, they say, looking for funding sources. And then again, in response to the 2024 fire season and the recognition of how much RFPs contributed when we had more fire on the landscape in Oregon than all the agencies combined could staff from Oregon resources to out of state, even international resources coming. We could not staff the fires fast enough. So having these local volunteers that stay in their community, protect that community, got a lot of notice, a lot of recognition, and the state of Oregon responded to that, saying, How can we help them be more, even more effective, and that the main thing that comes up is equipment and equipment maintenance. If they’re going to volunteer the time to go to a fire, we want them to be as effective as they can at that fire, and again, have that communication. And so House Bill 33 49 passed this last legislative session. It does two things. One thing is it opens an avenue for the Oregon Department of Forestry to transfer excess equipment directly to RFPs, instead of currently having to follow the Department of Administrative Services disposal process. And so this should help get radios, and it’s another avenue for used firefighting equipment. Already has tanks and pumps set up to fight fire in Oregon, directly to RFA. So we’re excited about that. The House Bill also set up a million dollar fund for them to help them acquire equipment and radios. So it’s a huge step. It’s been just really inspiring, encouraging to be part of, to watch this go through, to see just the unanimous support, bipartisan support, local communities to the state level and the federal level, just appreciating what these volunteers do, how much they contribute to the state of Oregon, not, you know, not just their own properties, but their neighbors and their communities. It’s a unique program. It’s incredibly fiscally responsible program. So looking forward to be able to help them out even more with some additional funding and another avenue for firefighting equipment.

Erin Borla 21:10
Yeah, well, and as so each of the rfpas are their own independent nonprofits. In your testimony before the Oregon State House, you said the annual budget for Vail, our FPA was just over $7,000 Yep. And you how many volunteers y’all have?

Derek Burkhardt 21:30
I mean, we’re at, like, what was it, Allison, 3040, and I think now we’re close to 6070, with the new volunteers this year. So

Erin Borla 21:40
yeah, and running that numbers of equipment that takes fuel in that take it’s not just in the equipment you got to, like, put gas in it and make it go. And so that’s an expense, and I know that as you know, the our foundation stepped in last year to provide some additional resources. And what we heard a lot was, like, tires blowing because of the heat and the stress, and it’s not just a regular tire typically,

Derek Burkhardt 22:08
nope, heavy equipment tire that is not cheap. And we’re farmers and ranchers, so we’re like, well, it’s still holding there. I just it’s good enough for now. We don’t have the budget for it, so which about got me this year. Yeah, definitely had a couple close calls with tires. This year, we’re just getting this super usable equipment. We have to put a lot of time and money and effort into them, and the tires are just too much money. So yeah, we’ve had, I think we’ve already had four or five tires that I’ve had to replace this year. So, yeah, it’s a lot. And

Erin Borla 22:46
when you say it’s an expensive tire, how much is an expensive tire?

Derek Burkhardt 22:50
Oh, depending on the vehicle, the water tender tires are pretty expensive because they’re hauling a lot of weight, which is the tire that I had explode on me. About took me off the road, on the high on the freeway, yeah, um, they’re at four to $600 a piece range, depending So, and a lot of them take 10 tires so you have that up and it it piles on quick.

Erin Borla 23:18
That’s your whole budget. Yeah? You know, yeah, so, and there’s other things I’m sure that y’all are trying to do. Talk about how, prior to the House bill that passed, and I do want to touch on that, how are you making ends meet? Like, how do you what are you doing to pay for fuel? What was it? How are you making this work? Just membership. Were you doing a chili feed.

Derek Burkhardt 23:42
Last year, after everything that happened, we had so many donations from the community that was, I mean, it helped tremendously. It wasn’t just dollar funds, but we had a ton of equipment, supplies, water, that kind of stuff donated that we’re still burning on this year. But fuel is hard, so using donated money, but a lot of it, if the person is you using the piece of equipment, they just start putting fuel in it, and it needs some maintenance, unless it gets way out of hand. A lot of us just eat the receipt. And it is what it is this year, actually having some funds. I mean, we’ve ran a lot of equipment through the shop, getting it fixed and serviced and taken care of to where we feel safe enough to use it. But, yeah, we’re burning through funds quick. That’s one thing about equipment is, yeah, our our budget really needs to expand, because one piece of equipment can eat our old budget. So

Erin Borla 24:41
So Allison talk about the House bill that just passed, there’s two components to it, both the transfer of equipment, which I think is a really exciting component, and the million dollars that’s available to help provide resources to acquire equipment. So. So for context, 28 rfpa is covering 17 and a half million acres, all in Eastern Oregon. I’m just going to read these stats, because I think they’re super interesting. Five and a half million acres of private land, 11 point 6 million acres of federal land, over 69,000 acres of tribal acreage, and then over 685,000

Erin Borla 25:25
state county and other acres. So that is a lot of ground that y’all are covering. And there was, this is a state legislated program. The rfpa program was legislated by the state, but there was not money tied to it originally, is that correct?

Allison Rayburn 25:41
Allison, correct? It’s one of the basis of the very first agreement when the RPA program started in the 60s. Is no funds exchanged. It’s a voluntary program. They don’t get money from the agencies they don’t pay into. And you know, that’s that’s crucial the program’s existence. If they were to get billed for the large fire costs, you know, on the ground, it would bankrupt the program. And so it’s, that’s the basis of it is, it’s a completely voluntary program funded by their own membership dues. And they, they volunteer their time and acquire their own equipment as their contribution to fires, and

Erin Borla 26:22
then 2024 happened, and how, what was the size and scope of the 2024 fires that really kind of kick started this house

Allison Rayburn 26:32
bill. So I’ll speak from my experience, as I was down in burns when the Falls fire started, and I was there supporting both the Oregon Department of Forestry landowners and the rfpa landowners on July 13, watching helplessly as the fire made a 50,000 acre run and wondering what this means for the future of the rfpa program. What does this what does a 50,000 acre fire mean for for a volunteer program. And within a you know, the Cal valley fire had already started, the Lone Rock fire had already started, and the turkey fire was a few, a few days later, we had with five mega fires on the landscape with volunteer firefighters working on 100,000 acre fires. It’s six mega fires last year. It was unlike anything Oregon seen, including the 2020, fire season. And so I immediately began thinking, what does this mean for our volunteer driven program? You know, we had such emotional landowners on the fire line, losing land, losing cattle, volunteers that maybe put in four or five days a summer do an initial attack that were on days 2025, 30 of volunteer time, completely exhausted, spending their own money to put fuel on their trucks at night or put tires on the vehicle to be able to go out to the line the next day just, I mean, it showed just incredible commitment and dedication from these volunteers to keep going in that environment. That environment. And so in the aftermath, you know, or one wondering, is this going to break the program? How is it going to change the program? And we’re still working through that. But I it did not break the program. If anything, it showed the landowners that they are needed more than ever, as we keep seeing these larger fires and record acres burn and there aren’t enough agency firefighters fast enough in the right places, the volunteers, the landowners, the familiar local resources that can do that are absolutely invaluable. You know, really proud. Derek’s joining us. You know, today, Vale was one of the hardest hit associations. I just think their story is incredible that their president, they started the virus season with no secretary, which put it’s an incredible workload on the chair of the association. They also started with no money. Last fire season, they had a community tragedy that the rfpa stepped up to assist with, you know, outside of the fire line. So they started with no secretary, no money, and a very burned out Chair of the rfpa that in the middle of half million acres of fire burning around him, you know, two of those mega fires impacting their rfpa. He said this, this is more than I signed on for. You know, had a very emotional conversation that he was done, and I expected more of that. But what was so inspiring is when he said, this is more than I signed on for, and I need help. Those landowners surrounded him, and the Vail RFA right now has a new chair, a new vice chair, Derek, a new secretary. I was just counting up the grant dollars, Derek, that your associations got. And I think between Vail and Ironside, you’ve got, they’ve got over $70,000 in grants, plus all those community, community donations. He’s talking about, again, the recognition of what they did is what, instead of breaking the association. Patients, I think it’s motivated and inspired them and brought them so much recognition. Like Derek said, they’ve got five new trucks in the aftermath of that. So one of the more motivated, you know, inspiring stories of the RFAs that we’ve seen that all around, you know, prior to last year, the largest expense for the rfpas was their liability insurance reimbursement. Again, this is a shoestring budget program, but after the 2024, fire season, and their their budgets for this year, the largest expense was equipment purchases. And so I think they saw the need. They saw what they can do. They received support and recognition after the last fire season, and I’m seeing them motivated and a big part of that is that recognition through the House bill. So again, I was down in burns on the Falls fire through the the worst of the fire event in July of 2024 and I met Representative Mark Owens at one of the community meetings for the fire. He lives in crane. He was very engaged. He was also attending the community meetings virtually for other fires, as were many of the other representatives and senators. But representative Owens was there at the community meeting, and we had a chance to visit a little bit about the rfpas, which is a big interest to the representatives, how their constituents, how their landowners, are faring through these fires. And the RFPs bring a unique opportunity to have a voice for multiple landowners through one organization. And so we had a conversation about it. Governor Kotek actually came down to burns to tour the fire, and Representative Owens set up a dinner with her and some of the impacted landowners, and invited me to that dinner, and Governor Kotek talking hearing some of the stories from the landowner. Said, I want, I want to see a Legislative Concept to provide more support for RFPs. And so representative, you know, after the aftermath of the fire season, Representative Owens, contacted me and said, you know, how are we going to go about this? And so he really took the lead on it. He gathered information from, you know, cooperators and RFAs themselves on what the need was. And again, the highest needs was equipment and funding to maintain that equipment. And so he drafted the concept, turned into a bill. Got several co sponsors, you know, bipartisan support from Eastern Oregon and the Willamette Valley. Derek was the first RFA member to come and testify for an informational hearing in December to tell the story to the House subcommittee. And it was really impactful just hearing him say how what they do with volunteer hours and how they scrape together equipment. And one of the really impactful things of his testimony is that they buy $30 radios off Amazon to communicate with, because they can’t afford the 2000 3000 $4,000 agency radios. And so again, we just continued to have just unanimous support of the bill. When it went to the full session, they had a had the hearing for it, and we had six RFP members that drove to Salem from Jordan Valley to from spray Oregon, from across the state. You know, we had members come and tell their story, and unanimously was supported by the House subcommittee, by the and ways and means it was one of the biggest question marks. I think everybody supports and appreciates what they do. But as always, the Oregon budgets tight. And, you know, funds are limited. And you know, choosing how to allocate those funds is really challenging. So I think one of the most rewarding parts was that it was supported by Ways and Means. And not only did we get the policy that allows access, direct access to state access equipment and supplies, but also got that million dollars of funding to kickstart that so, yeah, just a super positive experience. And the money’s gonna do, it’s gonna do amazing, you know, million dollars. I think there’s few programs that can stretch it further, and this program is gonna stretch it. But the support, you know, I think was, was bigger than the funding, even to see for our rural eastern Oregon landowner, you know, volunteers to get that kind of support from the state as a whole. Really rewarding.

Erin Borla 34:06
Derek, how did it feel being one that testified for that now that it’s come to fruition?

Derek Burkhardt 34:11
Nerve wracking, really. I hadn’t spent much time in Salem and going in front of that many people. I have a small community of like, 1300 total. So yeah, going to the big city for me was a lot, but it was so passionate, passionate about it, so there was no way I could not do it. I might have talked a little bit fast while I did it, but I know it was good to be heard and be a part of such a special deal. I’m excited. We’re going to do a lot of good things with the money. So now just figuring out the smartest way to go about utilizing it will be fun. But there’s how do you spread it equally and fairly with not every rfpa needs. A chunk of money, but some of us need more. So it’ll be interesting to see how we can all come together and work together, which, so far, everything I’ve been hearing has only been good, so I’m excited. We’ll do good things

Erin Borla 35:12
for sure. Yeah. And so this podcast is really about philanthropy, and how philanthropy can better support rural and remote and indigenous communities across the country. What are some ways that philanthropy can help the rfpas, or programs that are similar, that are sort of bootstrapping along,

Derek Burkhardt 35:31
for me, just to continue to support with our I mean, really, our budgets, it’s hard. We’re growing every day. I think of a new way that we could spend money to help set ourselves up for the future. So I mean, the outreach, the more people involved, the more people that know about it, the better. I mean, that’s connecting with everyone, which we’re really fortunate these days with social media and the internet and stuff, that we are so connected that things happen rapidly. So yeah, just one video my sister took of the fires last year, we got over a million views on posting on Tiktok. So it’s amazing how, how the outreach works these days. Yeah, we’re so tight knit. Yeah, any support? Yeah, not just directly from a specific person. But yeah, anyone we can get involved, the better.

Erin Borla 36:25
Allison, any other thoughts of things that you’re like, you know what our wish list includes?

Allison Rayburn 36:30
Yeah, I love your answer, Derek, that we keep asking them too. What do you guys need? What do you guys need? They’re like, just more trucks, more dozers. But yeah, like I mentioned that this has got to be one of the most cost effective programs you’ll ever find. You know, this year’s budgets increased after the 2024 fire season and again the equipment purchase. The amount of money allocated for equipment purchases went up significantly, meaning a total program of 1200 volunteers protecting 17 and a half million acres. The budget went up to $692,000 for this fiscal year. So we have no personnel expenses, no facility expenses. They’re all operating out of their own, you know, facilities. There’s no, you know, doing any maintenance or you know, expenses. There very, very minimal office expenses. You know, training is, I don’t think there’s been a cost to RFPs for equipment. Odf, you know, or specifically here to help the BLM, you know, volunteers, their training time, materials. It’s, it’s more trying to get see how much time can you get out of volunteers to invest in training. They’ve been investing so much in the firefighting, like I say, we really push to try to get that refresher training annually. But a few of them are would like facilities. Not that the RFAs have owned ground, but I guess they could use storage sheds, you know, containers, whole buildings, to keep equipment. Shared equipment at a central location has come up. But primarily it’s we need more equipment. I know we’re focused with the House bill money, specifically on safety first, as Derek said, making sure at this point, everybody has the personal protective equipment, you know, I think we’re close, but making sure everybody has the shirts, the pants, the necessary gear and radios, you know, just, I think that’s a high, high priority. Then also looking at the safety of equipment. So we’re focusing on tires, making sure that those tires are safe to drive and not leaving them stranded at a fire or in the path of a fire. And then also the pumps, you know, a lot of making sure they have reliable pumps and adequate pumps they don’t arrive at a fire, and they’re not able to, you know, get water to protect, protect themselves, or be effective. But that would be step two, is helping them be more effective. Again, we have 1000s and 1000s of volunteer hours go into fires. But I truly believe they could be more effective with the time they volunteer, if they had the tires to get them there, the adequate pumps when they arrive, the fire dedicated dozer or transport. So they’re it’s not taking the time to go, you know, load up a ranch dozer, go, you know, go get a tractor connected to the low boy and so, yeah, a million dollars is going to be incredible, but it’s, it’s just a start as to the money that we could put into this program to really help these volunteers be as effective as they can be well. And

Erin Borla 39:10
I think it’s important for organizations like ours that have the opportunity to reach out and go, Hey, we can help and what we we don’t know what you need. We don’t know what type of dozer or what type of pump that is helpful. But you know, we are happy to provide resources for fuel or lean on to you all that know exactly what you need. So I think being able to have those lists compat compiled for like, this is what we really need in this space, or this is what is needed in this rfpa That’s a little bit different landscape is always helpful too. So there’s a there’s the wish list that’s available.

Derek Burkhardt 39:44
I think that’s a great idea. We really all need a better wish list. We have the wants and needs list for equipment, but we really could expand outside of equipment on what else we need.

Erin Borla 39:57
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s helpful too. I think. Think because people hear, you know, Oh, I saw that you did this. Or I saw your Tiktok, which is awesome. How do I help with the Tiktok? Right? What’s what’s next, and where do I support and been able to know, gosh, what we really need is fuel. Or we had one rfpa outside of Antelope that just, they’re like, We need Gatorade. People are pulling 24 hour shifts, and they’re tired, it’s hot, and so just knowing what what different communities are looking for and what they need, and being able to show up in that space, I think that’s philanthropies role, and I’m hopeful that we can see some more movement in that, and come alongside what the state’s done to ensure that y’all last a long time.

Derek Burkhardt 40:41
We really appreciate all the support. It means a lot. We can, like Allison said, we we can stretch $1 a long ways in our in our rfpa, we’re probably the most efficient use of $1 out of out of every entity that’s fighting fire, by far. Yeah, we can. We can make every cent count and stretch it a little more well.

Erin Borla 41:07
It’s been really great. Allison, to get to know you. Derek, to hear about all the great work that you all are doing. Thank you for sharing and telling your story. Really appreciate your volunteer hours. I know that you have 1000 things you’re doing, and so knowing that you’re there for your neighbors and your community, it just, it means a lot, and it’s the rural ethos, I think you show up

Derek Burkhardt 41:31
thank you. Honestly, it means a lot.

Allison Rayburn 41:34
Well, thank you so much, Erin, for the recognition for, you know, inviting Derek and I to be on one of your episodes, and yeah, just from for the support from the Roadhouse, we really appreciate it.

Erin Borla 41:56
There may not be an rfpa in every state. I think Allison mentioned that it’s only here in Oregon, and then they started one in Nevada. There might be a few other states that are trying these things, but what there is in every community are these grassroots organizations really doing the work. So find a way to back something that’s working. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. When our state was on fire in 2024 roundhouse, leaned in and we picked up the phone and called those rfpas that were out there doing that work, and said, What do you think that you need? Can we help you with some fuel? And we got a few like, Who are you type answers on the phone. But also we were the one of the few that reached out, and now have started building this relationship, and we’re seeing those volunteer associations and nonprofits start to come to us and say, Actually, we do have some needs, and here are the things we’re trying to do for our community. So let’s look at those things that are working on the ground and get behind them, because that’s the rural ethos, where we help each other, even if we don’t agree all the time, building partnerships with officials to get a job done, no matter how daunting it might seem. We can open those doors that not every on the ground organization can open. We can tell that story. We’ll have all sorts of information about rfpas@fundingrural.com you

Unknown Speaker 43:23
you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai