The 2023 fire season in Northeast Oregon was, relatively speaking, an easy go.

But the reason why — an unusual rainstorm, fueled by a decaying hurricane thousands of miles away that soaked the region and dampened the fire season — isn’t likely to be repeated this year.

So, as we head into summer, Oregon also heads into the heart of the 2024 fire season — and fire experts say they expect a season that is more typical.

Which covers a lot of potential ground.

So it’s good that the county’s four Firewise communities got together last Saturday to compare notes and to get ready for 2024’s fire season.

Chances are you’re familiar with the Firewise program, which is administered by the National Fire Protection Association. Firewise provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors get organized and take action to make their homes less vulnerable to fire and to reduce wildfire risks. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters.

Firewise communities are taking root all over the West. Wallowa County, for example, has four Firewise communities.

In the Lostine Firewise community, residents won grants to purchase firefighting equipment, to create defensible space around their homes, and to hire contractors to work on the landscape to help reduce the fuels that feed wildfire.

It’s work that pays off — just ask Lostine residents, who didn’t need any additional help from state or federal firefighters to protect their property during the fires that raced through the region in the summer of 2022.

The best thing about the Firewise program is that it offers specific steps that communities can take together to face the threat of wildfire. As we see wildfires burn with greater frequency and intensity, fueled by a warmer climate and forests clogged with fuels, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Firewise shows people they aren’t helpless in the face of fire.

Maybe nobody is ever completely prepared for that moment when fire breaks out on the other side of the ridge. But being part of a Firewise community — and taking some relatively simple steps before that fire starts — helps close the gap.

Of course, a fire doesn’t have to burning near your property for it to affect your health: Scientists are beginning to get a better sense about just how dangerous smoke from wildfires can be. According to a recent story in The Atlantic magazine, researchers recently reported that smoke from California wildfires prematurely killed more than 50,000 people from 2008 to 2018.

Researchers know the most about a primary pollutant from wildfire — tiny particles called PM2.5, which are small enough to get into the bloodstream and can cause inflammation and a variety of related health issues. But scientists also believe other pollutants in wildfire smoke may trigger health issues as well.

The author of The Atlantic article, Zoe Schlanger, reports that air quality in the United States had been improving, but wildfire smoke is changing that equation. (The Clean Air Act doesn’t cover wildfires, terming them an “exceptional event.”) In fact, Schlanger reports, about a quarter of PM2.5 pollution in the United States is now linked to wildfire smoke — and in the West, in bad fire years, that percentage can go up to 50%.

Government officials and emergency managers are struggling to find ways to cope with wildfire smoke. Oregon is one of just three states regulating on-the-job exposure to smoke. (All three states are on the West Coast.)

Everyone knows more smoke is on the way. We need smarter, scientifically informed ways to respond, and we need them in a hurry — because smoke doesn’t just get into your eyes, it sneaks into your bloodstream as well.