No one ought to be surprised that Oregon has been spending much more over the past decade or so to fight wildfires.

There have been more fires to fight.

And many of those blazes have been bigger — far bigger — than in decades past.

The disastrous Labor Day fires of 2020 are the most obvious example of this disturbing, and expensive, trend. Those fires in Western and Southern Oregon burned more than 1 million acres, killed 11 people and destroyed about 4,000 homes.

The state spent $130 million fighting fires that year. The year before the tab was $129 million.

In the first decade of this century, annual firefighting costs averaged around $10 million.

The Oregon Legislature responded by passing Senate Bill 762 in 2021. The legislation included $220 million to bolster the Oregon Department of Forestry’s firefighting capacity, including hiring close to 100 new employees and buying fire trucks and other equipment.

Lawmakers also recognized that private landowners should not have to alone bear the rapidly growing financial burden. Property owners pay ODF an annual fee (it’s added to property tax bills) for wildfire protection. Those fees go to the Oregon Forest Land Protection Fund, and the $10 million fund in the comparatively tranquil past was often sufficient to cover firefighting costs.

But that sum seems paltry given the escalating costs over the past decade. And the state has invested even more through Senate Bill 762.

To ease the burden on private landowners, the Legislature included a $15 million “offset” for the final year of the state’s two-year budget cycle, which ended June 30, 2023. That money kept the annual protection fees from rising more than they would have otherwise. In Northeastern Oregon, where ODF protects almost 2 million acres, the protection rate for grazing land (about 1.09 million acres) rose in 2022 by 14%, and for timberland (848,000 acres) it increased by 9%.

ODF, anticipating that wildfire seasons will continue to strain the state budget, requested another $15 million for the current fiscal year.

But Gov. Tina Kotek didn’t include the money in her budget. And the Legislature didn’t include the $15 million offset in the budget it approved before adjourning in late June.

The effect on fire protection fees was inevitable.

The fee for grazing land in Northeastern Oregon rose by 52%. The timber land fee increased by 32%. Increases were even larger for the Central Oregon district, which includes Grant County and parts of Morrow County.

This is unfair.

Although it’s appropriate, of course, for landowners to pay ODF to protect their property from fire, their share should be reasonable.

This year’s increases are not reasonable.

State Sen. Elizabeth Steiner, a Democrat from the Portland area who is co-chair of the Ways and Means Committee, which sets the state’s budget policy, agrees.

Steiner spent a couple days in Eastern Oregon in late October, visiting with county officials and landowners in Baker and Malheur counties and learning about the effects of the rising protection fees.

Those fees, Steiner said, constitute a “big challenge” for landowners.

With the $15 million offset, lawmakers recognized that property owners who pay the protection fee aren’t the only Oregonians who benefit from ODF’s firefighting efforts.

Wildfires ignore property boundaries. A blaze that starts on private property can spread to public land, potentially affecting everyone who uses those lands. The smoke that has fouled Oregon’s air in each of the past several summers harms everyone. Conversely, the fees that a relatively small number of landowners pay to ODF for fire protection yield benefits for the majority of us who don’t pay those fees. The $15 million offset from the state’s general fund acknowledges the shared burden of fighting wildfires.

Fortunately the Legislature can assure that this year’s big jump in protection fees is a one-year anomaly.

Steiner said there’s a “strong probability” that lawmakers, who convene in Salem on Feb. 5, will adjust the ODF budget and potentially reduce protection fees.

“The cost needs to be spread more equitably,” Steiner said.

The senator is right.