Nearly 170 Oregon families reported losing food purchased with SNAP because of summer fires

About 170 Oregon households requested replacements to their federal food benefits this summer after they had to evacuate their homes because of a wildfire this summer, according to data the Capital Chronicle obtained from the Oregon Department of Human Services. 

This summer marked Oregon’s most expensive and vast wildfire season, with most of the 2.5 million acres Oregon saw burned occurring in July and August. The fires destroyed at least 30 homes and 74 other structures, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry’s fire dashboard. 

Those fires and associated evacuations cost low-income families at least $44,000 worth of food bought using benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

SNAP recipients, who represent one in six Oregonians, can request that the human services department replace their benefits if their food was lost or spoiled because of a natural disaster such as flooding, storms, power outages or fire. 

The human services department received most wildfire replacement requests in July, when 107 households applied for replacement benefits. In August, 62 applied for replacement benefits. No households requested replacements in June. 

The summer replacement requests came from households living across six counties: Clackamas, Jackson, Jefferson, Klamath, Umatilla and Wasco.

Half of those requests came from households living in Jefferson County, where in late July the Bench Fire pushed residents living near the Warm Springs Indian Reservation to evacuate their homes. The fire burned more than 67,000 acres and the forestry department reports it is 90% contained as of Wednesday. 

The 86 Jefferson County households who requested replacement SNAP benefits received $23,000 back from the human services department, or an average of $264 back per household. 

A third of the SNAP replacement requests came from residents who live in Klamath County, where the Wrights Spring Fire located six miles southeast of Chiloquin began in early August. The fire scorched more than 55,000 acres, taking nearly four weeks of evacuation orders and hundreds of personnel to put it out. 

At least one person, 47-year-old Jason Ensign of Klamath Falls, died while fighting the fire. As of Tuesday, state records listed it at 98% containment.

The 53 households in Klamath County that requested replacement benefits received $13,000 back, or an average of about $245 per household. 

Seventeen families living in Jackson County requested SNAP replacement benefits because of the wildfire, while six households in Umatilla County and six in Wasco County made requests. Just one household in Clackamas County requested that the human services agency replace its SNAP benefits.