‘Nimble and Flexible’ Funding: What We Learned from Oregon’s 2026 Wildfire Season

Oregon’s 2026 wildfire season was a reminder that Oregonians have the power to prepare and respond — they just need the right resources at the right time.  

More than 2.5 million acres burned across Oregon this year, roughly the size of Connecticut. Through Oregon Community Foundation Donor Advised Funds and OCF’s Disaster Readiness and Response Fund, more than $1.3 million reached communities during the wildfire season. Other partners in the Oregon Disaster Funders Network sent another $1 million to wildfire-affected communities. 

Hear the stories behind the lessons 

Disaster response funding needs to be “nimble and flexible.” That was a key take-away that emerged from Oregon Together: What Comes Next After the 2026 Wildfires. Oregon Community Foundation President and CEO Lisa Mensah gathered with the Oregon State Fire Marshal and community leaders from Oregon State University Extension Service, the Oregon Disaster Funders Network and the towns of Spray and Talent to talk about what they saw this fire season — and what Oregon can do differently before the next disaster. 

Watch: What Oregon’s Wildfire Season Taught Us 

In Wheeler County, preparation started with neighbors already accustomed to looking out for one another.  

When roughly 1,000 firefighters arrived near Spray, a town of 140, the Spray General Store became a hub for volunteers who fed crews, met urgent needs and shared updates with the community.  

Preparing food for firefighters in Spray, Oregon. Photo courtesy of Joni Kabana.

Joni Kabana, founder of an arts center at the Spray General Store, described how Wheeler County mobilized: “Women would go into their pantries, because we don’t have a grocery store nearby, and they assembled lunches for several days. My friends would send me videos of their young kids up on bulldozers.” 

Flexible funding helped quickly provide radios, masks and other equipment, and word traveled through the county: Somebody cares about us. 

Now, community members are planning more ways to care for firefighters and residents who must stay behind in the smoke to feed livestock and other animals.  

In communities affected by smoke, getting resources where they were needed quickly helped residents breathe easier.  

Nicole Strong, Regional Director for Oregon State University Extension Service, works in Central Oregon from Heppner to the Columbia River Gorge, out to Wheeler County.  

“We had a really dry winter,” Nicole said. “By July, my whole region was impacted by fire and smoke.” 

Box filter fans to clear the smoke from homes. Photo Oregon State University Extension Service.

Because Extension staff live and work in communities across Oregon, they quickly named a need for box filter fans to clear the smoke from homes. With Extension Services budgets already set for the year, Nicole turned to flexible philanthropic disaster funding to buy fans, filters and duct tape, distributing more than 1,000 clean-air kits across 13 counties.  

“As government funding dwindles, and the timeline for a normal federal or state grant process can be upwards of a year, having really quick local opportunities, not just to respond, but to build and empower our communities before the next event, is more critical than before,” Nicole said. 

The Oregon Disaster Funders Network showed that same flexibility can help communities prepare for the next emergency.  

In Weston, a small city in eastern Umatilla County, a wildfire exposed a critical vulnerability: power shutoffs could prevent the city from running its water system when firefighters needed it most. 

City leaders determined they needed a $130,000 generator. That was far beyond the city’s budget. The network helped connect the city with funders that contributed gifts ranging from about $10,000 to $30,000. Within six weeks, the city had the full amount it needed, with minimal paperwork. 

For Kristin Kelley Monahan of the Oregon Disaster Funders Network, the lesson is straightforward: “Preparing in advance is more effective and less costly.” By building relationships and agreeing on roles before disaster strikes, communities can reduce the chaos when it does. 

The Oregon Disaster Funders Network now connects more than 40 funders, so communities can make one request and reach multiple potential partners, saving time and paperwork. 

And in Talent, the lesson is that recovery doesn’t end when the fire is out. 

Six years after the Almeda Fire, the Southern Oregon community is rebuilding. During the disaster, Talent Maker City became a trusted hub for the community. Executive Director Alli French said as recently as 2025, workers and volunteers there were still building beds for families who lost their homes in 2020. 

“If you had asked me when we started our journey becoming a makerspace, would we be involved in disaster recovery? That was, like, the furthest thing from my mind,” Alli said. 

"During the disaster, we were trying to negotiate finding resources at the same time as being a resource for the community," she said. "Recovery is long. Do not forget communities like Spray years from now.”  

Resilience is built before disaster, strengthened during response and sustained through recovery. 

One lesson the Oregon Together discussion kept coming back to was that disaster response takes local knowledge, trusted relationships and flexible resources.  

No single organization can prepare Oregon for disaster alone. But together, we can invest in the people who already know their communities, strengthen local systems before the next crisis and help communities recover for as long as it takes. 

The next wildfire season may be unpredictable. Our readiness doesn’t have to be.