Two years later: Lessons in Preparedness from the Camp Creek Fire

Two years ago this month, the Camp Creek Fire burned over 2,000 acres in the Bull Run Watershed, Portland’s primary drinking water source. This anniversary, the fire still reminds us that we must strengthen the resilience of the system we’ve worked so hard to build.

With wildfire season underway, the Portland Water Bureau is taking proactive steps to safeguard our region’s most vital natural resource—our drinking water.

“We’re focused on the long-term value for Portlanders. By making these investments now, we can avoid higher costs and bigger risks later,” said Interim Director Quisha Light.

The Portland Water Bureau continues to ramp up its wildfire mitigation efforts, including:

• Building a new water filtration facility that will increase resilience against post-fire impacts
• Collaborative planning and patrols with U.S. Forest Service
• Investments in remote monitoring and early detection systems
• Actively planning and maintaining our secondary water supply—groundwater—as an alternate source

Quicker recovery

The Water Bureau is planning a new filtration facility that will filter sediment out of our water and allow us to continue to safely serve Bull Run water after a fire or extreme weather event. Heavy rain can wash dirt, plant debris, ash, and other organics into our streams and reservoirs. This can be more pronounced following a wildfire. The Bull Run is currently unfiltered. Right now, if large amounts of dirt or organic material enter our supply, we can’t safely serve the water.

Once the filtration facility is up and running, our upgraded multistep treatment process will help address turbidity (sediment suspended in water) and other potential impacts to our water supply that can result from a fire, a landslide, volcanic activity, or a large storm.

The ability to address these impacts through filtration will help our community access clean water , even after a disaster.

Better customer protection

The new filtration facility will greatly reduce the threat of a long-term outage of the Bull Run system and is one of the ways we’re preparing for the future.

Today, when the Bull Run supply is affected, the Water Bureau turns to our secondary source, groundwater from the Columbia South Shore Well Field. However, our groundwater supply system is not designed to meet peak summer demand or provide 100% of our long-term supply. If we had to rely on groundwater for extended periods of many months, we would likely need to ask customers to reduce their water use to help stretch our supply. Filtration can help us avoid that possibility.

Access to safe and plentiful water is critical to the health and vitality of our community. Investments in the filtration facility and in our groundwater system go hand in hand to improve the reliability of our drinking water supply for all customers.

Added health benefits

Filtration will not only provide stronger supply resilience—it will also help Portland comply with federal and state safe drinking water regulations today and in the future. The Water Bureau is required to build the filtration facility to remove the microorganism Cryptosporidium from our water. And filtration will also remove other harmful microorganisms and contaminants. One important health benefit is that, by removing organics, filtration will reduce regulated compounds such as disinfection byproducts that can cause health problems in people.

The new filtration facility is under construction, and the Water Bureau is working to have the new facility in operation by September 2027. When complete, this project will protect our drinking water and our community—helping us provide consistent high-quality drinking water and making our water system more resilient to future risks.