QuickTake:

Nearly five years later, Lane County continues working to get recovery funds out to residents and businesses that were affected by the fire. The new business recovery fund is one part of the broader efforts.

Lane County commissioners approved plans Tuesday, Aug. 12, for a $2 million recovery fund for businesses harmed by the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire.

The commissioners’ 4-0 decision designates Community LendingWorks as its partner to develop and manage the $2 million fund and work with businesses. The money is part of about $7.5 million in federal community development block grant money for disaster recovery related to the fire.

The Holiday Farm Fire burned more than 173,000 acres and 1,100 homes, businesses and other structures in the McKenzie River Valley, including in the communities of Blue River, Finn Rock, Vida and Nimrod. 

Nearly five years later, recovery work continues at a plodding pace as funding trickles out. In March, county commissioners accepted the federal funding, which was routed to the county from Oregon Housing and Community Services.

County officials said they were grateful for the money they receive, but frustrated at the pace of getting the funding for recovery.

“Slow and insufficient funding has hampered recovery efforts,” Matt McRae, Lane County disaster recovery manager, wrote in a memorandum about the fund to commissioners. “Not allocating these funds would further delay or prevent the recovery of multiple businesses impacted by the Holiday Farm Fire.”

Lane County Commissioner Heather Buch’s district includes the Holiday Farm Fire area. She said it’s been challenging to find a funding source to aid business recovery that is not loans.

“If they can find anything, it’s loans,” Buch said. “And when they’ve lost everything, loans are not actually feasible for them. So this is real, true, grant dollar funding.”

The Holiday Farm Fire was part of five Labor Day fires that burned nearly 850,000 acres of forests across the state in 2020. The fires struck during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“There were a lot of compounding effects that led to a slow dissemination of recovery funds,” Buch said. “And I’ve always advocated that those dollars come down to the county, because we can more quickly get those out the door. That took a lot of convincing, but we got there, and now we’re just trying to get this money out to folks in need.”

Other projects in the larger federal grant include fire suppression tanks, McKenzie School District heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and a school track.

Lane County approached Community LendingWorks about managing the fund due to its “demonstrated record of carefully and swiftly distributing recovery funds to support small businesses,” the memo said. 

For example, the Springfield-based company ran an emergency loan fund for small businesses in the county during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.