Talent

Senator Jeff Merkley met with local leaders yesterday in Phoenix, Oregon to discuss rebuilding efforts a year after the Almeda fire.

The heat in Oregon is back. Triple digit temperatures this week are prompting communities in Southern Oregon to open cooling shelters this week.

After last year's wildfires in Southern Oregon, around 1000 people in the city of Talent still don't have access to the internet in their homes and businesses. Now the city is looking to change that by partnering with a nonprofit called No One Left Offline (NOLO).

A dry summer, after previous drought years, has led to irrigation water in the Rogue Valley being turned off for at least two weeks.

Last September’s Almeda Fire burned hundreds of homes in Southern Oregon, many of them low-income housing units. The Federal Emergency Management Agency partnered with local and state organizations to help rebuild.

A report assessing Jackson County’s response to last year’s devastating wildfires calls on government leaders to create a more coordinated emergency plan.

Last fall’s Almeda fire burned down thousands of homes and left many unemployed. Several nonprofits have partnered with Jackson County schools to start the Bus Project: a program that invites students to help rebuild school buses into homes.

Hundreds of families in Talent and other cities in Jackson County are still scrambling to find a place to live six months after the Almeda Fire.They’re calling on government officials to do more.

Governor Kate Brown came to the Rogue Valley Monday to get a first-hand look at the devastation caused by the Almeda Fire. After her tour of the damage in Phoenix and Talent, the governor spoke via cell phone with JPR’s Liam Moriarty about what she saw and what the state government can do to help.

More evacuation levels lowered in Talent and Phoenix; I-5 Exits 21 and 24 have reopened.

Roadblocks are keeping cars out of evacuation zones near the Almeda Fire in Jackson County, but cyclists can still get in. So a group of cyclists is delivering resources to people stranded in their homes.

As the Almeda Fire swept through the Oregon towns of Talent and Phoenix this week, residents evacuated to an emergency shelter at the Jackson County Expo. Soon, many found themselves homeless in their own towns.