As fires scorched through a record 2.5 million acres this summer, mostly in eastern and central Oregon, many of the state’s transportation maintenance crews traded patching potholes and cleaning culverts for wildfire response.
Diverting resources to respond to severe weather events is becoming increasingly common for the Oregon Department of Transportation. But as the agency looks to cut nearly 200 maintenance positions to fill a $200 million budget gap in the 2027-29 budget cycle, agency officials and climate experts warn that reducing staff amid a growing maintenance backlog and more frequent severe weather events could accelerate the deterioration of Oregon’s highways, bridges and roads.
On top of evacuating their own families and protecting their properties from wildfire, many workers managed traffic, hauled heavy equipment out of active fire zones, coordinated community evacuations and closed highway sections to serve as fire breaks for fire suppression crews, Oregon Department of Transportation Chief Engineer Tova Peltz said.
About 10% of the maintenance positions at risk are already vacant, Peltz said, but eliminating the rest would require layoffs.
When responding to severe weather, Peltz said she worries about worker safety and burnout.
“I know folks are working long hours and we’re bringing in folks from the west side of the state to support crews on the east side that have been working nonstop through the fires,” she said. “I worry that that is going to get so much worse in the future.”
Severe weather and Oregon transportation infrastructure
Jo Sias, a civil engineering professor at the University of New Hampshire and the lead researcher of a 2025 study examining the impacts of climate change on roads, compared maintaining road infrastructure to routine car upkeep.
“Any decreases in staffing and delayed maintenance are only going to make things get worse faster,” she told the Capital Chronicle.
Climate change is projected to increase the national annual costs of pavement maintenance by more than $500 million on average by 2050, according to the study. The study found asphalt ages faster at higher temperatures, making it more prone to cracking and rutting. Additionally, flooding also reduces the lifetime of pavement by up to 16 months.
More wildfires in Oregon are a symptom of extreme summer heat — Oregon’s most common severe weather event, said Paul Loikith, an associate professor of weather and climate science at Portland State University.
Oregon is experiencing a rising number of days above 90 degrees, a trend he said is expected to continue. And with more wildfires comes the risk of more landslides across Oregon’s highways, he said. Numerous studies show heavy rainfall triggers landslides in places where wildfires consumed vegetation and created water-repellent soil.
Landslides already affect 7% of the state’s highway system, or nearly 500 miles of road, according to the transportation department. Many of those landslides stem from wave and stream erosion, including at least three locations along the coastal U.S. Highway 101.
Other areas prone to landslides include roads along the Columbia River Gorge and Cascade Mountain passes. The transportation department spends around $2.5 million a year on landslide mitigation projects and $18.1 million on landslide-related repairs.
Extreme heat also takes a toll on public transportation. Heat can cause rail, bridge and overhead wires to expand in public transportation infrastructure — resulting in slower trains and delays.
As winter temperatures also increase in the coming decades, Loikith said more rain in the mountains instead of snow will increase the risk of flooding.
The anticipated staff cuts would reduce a third of Oregon’s 80 statewide maintenance crews to five people or less, Peltz said. Crews currently range from five to 20 people or more during the winter.
Severe weather response diverts maintenance funding
Oregon’s transportation department doesn’t have the budget to respond to severe weather events, so it diverts maintenance funding away from routine maintenance projects, Peltz said.
It took five years and a federal emergency declaration for the agency to get reimbursed for the recovery work it did in response to the 2020 Labor Day fires that scorched more than 1 million acres and destroyed thousands of homes, she said. That work included repairing damaged pavements and signs and clearing debris, vegetation and hazardous trees.
Even routine work is impacted. Extreme heat shortened the transportation agency’s season for chip sealing because pavement temperatures spiked too quickly, Peltz said, forcing the agency to add the delayed projects to its growing maintenance backlog.
“As the weather gets weirder and less consistent and harder to predict, it’s harder and harder to do the preventive maintenance that is critical to taking care of the aging transportation system,” Peltz said.
Transportation in Oregon fueling the severe weather impacts
As the transportation department scrambles to repair infrastructure damaged by severe weather events, climate advocates argue Oregon’s transportation sector is fueling those very events.
Oregon’s transportation sector is responsible for 35% of the state’s greenhouse gases, representing the largest sector of greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
“When vehicles produce more climate pollution, that climate pollution is trapped in our atmosphere,” said Brett Morgan, the transportation policy director at Northwest-based environmental nonprofit Climate Solutions. “That is heat that dries out our forests, reduces the amount of snowfall and then dries forest more easily resulting in more wildfire in our system.”
Morgan argues that preserving the agency’s current maintenance levels while simultaneously investing in climate-resilient projects would save Oregonians money in the long run.
In a report, Climate Solutions estimated that investments in electric buses, bike and pedestrian paths and public transit would save Oregonians almost $5,000 per person a year.
“If we do not fundamentally address climate change as a strategy that is interlinked to maintaining what we have, we are only boxing ourselves into an affordability crisis where it is more expensive to maintain what we have, and we are not offering everyday Oregonians tools and options that will directly decrease their cost of living,” Morgan said.
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com.
