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Just before 8 pm on July 26, a 911 dispatcher received a call concerning a fire in the backyard of a Southwest Portland home.
Four firefighters responded to the scene. They found the homeowner burning a brush pile the firefighters classified as medium to large, according to the official report of the incident.
That home belongs to District 4 City Councilor Mitch Green.
The fire violated a burn ban issued by the city and Multnomah County six weeks earlier, on June 15, that explicitly forbids burning yard debris because of hot and dry conditions.
To be sure, no one was injured because of the fire in Green’s backyard and the blaze was quickly extinguished. Nor was it uncommon for Portland Fire & Rescue to respond to such a call during summer, when such fires are banned but some Portlanders light them anyway, hoping to skirt regulations.
But Green is an elected official, and the fact that he apparently flouted the city and county burn bans is surprising—especially for a councilor who has opined on the risk of human-started fires in his district, particularly in the heavily wooded area of Forest Park. (The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality also prohibits yard debris burns in the greater Portland area. Exceptions are granted by DEQ only “for emergencies and hardship requests”—to qualify, you must apply for a permit.)
Green did not respond to multiple texts and emails requesting comment.
The fire report, obtained through a public records request, shows dispatchers received a call at 7:48 pm on an 81-degree Sunday. The dispatcher noted the call had come from a neighbor to the south who reported hearing “a loud noise and then seeing flames, backyard on fire.”
A fire engine carrying a lieutenant and three firefighters arrived on the scene 10 minutes later at the home in the West Portland Park neighborhood. Upon arrival, the fire lieutenant found what he characterized in his official report as “Home owner burning a Med/Large brush pile.”
“Resident had started to put it out prior to E18’s arrival,” the report notes. The fire engine “showered the area with tank water to ensure it was out.”
Pictures taken of Green’s home in 2023 show a sizable backyard covered mostly in grass, bark chips, and stones and bricks partially covered by moss. A few trees dot the fence ringing the backyard.
The local ban on fires went into effect early this summer. Multnomah County and the city of Portland implemented their burn bans of June 15 “due to forecasted summer high temperatures, projected limited rainfall, and expected dry conditions,” a joint statement noted.
“This decision is rooted in our responsibility to protect the community and our natural resources,” said Multnomah County Fire Defense District Chief Jason Kelly at the time. “Conditions are quickly becoming hot/dry, and human-caused fires remain one of our greatest risks. Limiting open burning is one of our most effective preventative measures.”
On the Sunday of the fire at Green’s home, news outlets reported earlier in the day that 1 million acres across Oregon and Washington had burned this year as a result of wildfires. (Today, the total in Oregon alone is more than 2 million acres; 32 large wildfires are currently burning across the state.)
Green has frequently spoken about the threat of wildfire in his district, which covers all of Northwest and Southwest Portland. Of particular concern for him, he’s said before, is the fire risk in Forest Park, which some experts have described as a tinder box just waiting for a match.
In one candidate questionnaire when Green ran for City Council in 2024, he wrote: “The wildfire risk in Forest Park or a disaster at the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub are daily worries for many households living in D4. I will lead in investing in proactive wildfire mitigation for our urban forests…My guiding principle is that it’s always less expensive to prevent a crisis than to react to a crisis after the fact.” (The Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub is a 6-mile stretch of industrial development along the west bank of the Willamette River in Northwest Portland.)
And in this spring’s budget talks, Green tried to pass an amendment to restore funding for a Fire Station that serves the CEI Hub and the St. Johns neighborhood. “It’s unacceptable to cut the nearest fire engine to the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub,” Green’s proposal read, “particularly as we head into a hot, dry summer.”
On Tuesday morning, as the city sat under a layer of smoke that painted the skies a hazy orange, Portland Fire Chief Lauren Johnson addressed the council’s Community and Public Safety Committee about the wildfires raging across the state. It was a somber debrief, and she laid out how Portland firefighters had been deployed across the state to help combat fires.
“The season continues to challenge fire agencies statewide,” Johnson said, “pushing every department to stretch their limits in an effort to provide aid to others.”
