TALENT, Ore. (KTVZ) – The Oregon Department of Forests has named the southern Oregon city of Talent, which has fought back the devastation of wildfire in 2020, as Oregon’s Tree Town of the Year. Only one community is selected each year from across the state. Cottage Grove was last year’s award winner.
To qualify for the Tree City of the Year award, a community must be a Tree City USA. To become a Tree City USA, communities must meet the requirements of the national Arbor Day Foundation to have basic tree care policies and management.
Talent has held this status for 23 years. Last year, the city also received a Growth Award for significant improvements to its city forestry program for the fourth time.
A fast-spreading wildfire in 2020 destroyed about 40 percent of the city, leaving thousands homeless and killing a heartbreaking number of its trees.
Before the fire, Talent didn’t have an accurate inventory of his city trees. With the help of ODF grants for urban forestry, Talent gained access to PlanIt Geo (Treeplotter) inventory software.
The city inventoried 1,500 street and park trees throughout the municipality — about a third of the estimated public trees in Talent. From this data, Talent can determine the size, diversity, ecosystem services, and economic losses resulting from the destroyed portion of its urban forest.
“After being devastated by the 2020 wildfire, Talent has bounced back as a community and has shown great dedication and dedication to its urban forest. Despite the traumatic and devastating loss, they still managed to outperform all other Growth Award contenders,” said ODF Urban and Community Assistance Forester Brittany Oxford.
“Most importantly, they have mapped their treetops with a justice-based focus that guides their reforestation efforts. The city is working hard to ensure that the historically underserved talent is the vantage point from which to begin reforestation and recovery.”
“This recognition was earned through the hard work of so many dedicated talents, from elected city commissioners, tree board, volunteers and city employees, like our new Hazard Mitigation Coordinator Mike Oxendine,” said Talent Mayor Darby Ayres-Flood. “It shows our city’s resilience and determination to come back even better than before the wildfire.”
As a certified arborist, Oxendine has assisted Talent with citywide assessment and removal of hazard trees. He was also the liaison with the Talent Urban Forestry Committee and is a project leader in the development of a master plan for the city’s urban forest. This is in addition to seeking and monitoring grant funding for hazard mitigation and canopy restoration, including tree planting.
“The post-fire grants have enabled us to hire a professional GIS contractor, Nikki Hart-Brinkley, who is the owner and director of Green Top Planning, Development, and Research,” Oxendine said.
He said Hart-Brinkley has been working on a series of maps detailing canopy coverage before and after the 2020 wildfire.
“The maps are the basis for our Urban Tree Canopy Assessment. They show that within the city limits of Talent (a total of 851 acres) we had 142 acres of canopy before the wildfire and 104 acres after the fire. That’s a drop in canopy coverage from 16.7% to 12.3%. That’s about a loss of one in four trees,” Oxendine explained.
“This canopy assessment also informs our decisions about achieving equity in our reforestation efforts. We analyze heat islands and overlay this data layer with socioeconomic data to show where our heat islands intersect with historically underserved populations. We can see where there is a lot of asphalt and concrete and where shade trees are most needed,” Oxendine added.
Oxford said Talent is also expanding knowledge of tree performance in southern Oregon conditions, reporting data on the growth rates of 10 common urban trees in her community.
ktvz.com
https://ktvz.com/news/oregon-northwest/2023/03/23/town-of-talent-rises-from-wildfires-ashes-to-become-oregons-tree-city-of-the-year/
