It’s been three years since the Labor Day wildfires of 2020 nearly incinerated Detroit, Oregon, destroying 80% of the homes and businesses.

Michelle Connor, Detroit’s town recorder, still gets teary remembering the day she returned to her small, remote mountain town. “Our homes were gone. Our downtown was gone. There was no water. No electricity. People thought our town was going to die.”

Detroit has recovered faster than most experts expected. Water and electricity are restored. A new community center houses the town’s City Hall, a gymnasium and the local fire district. A $7 million water treatment system paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is under discussion. Dozens of homes have been rebuilt or are under construction.

Dotting the town, Blue Spirit of Detroit yard signs display a vintage RV with the words Lake, Sun, Family, Fun, RVs. Encircling the RV is the slogan SPIRIT OF DETROIT. LONG LIVE TRADITION.

The signs represent the contentious divide within the city regarding the number of recreational vehicles (RV’s) that should be permitted within the city. Detroit has long allowed limited recreational vehicle usage while building a home and vacationing during summer months. Detroit’s current development code allows two RVs on any property during the recreational season from April through October. Two additional RVs are allowed on lots with the approval of two city councilors. After the 2020 fires turned forested housing lots into treeless parking lots, RVs have proliferated with up to four parked on a 50-foot by 100-foot lot.

Connor explained the issue dividing the town.

“Now that we don’t have any trees, people bought property just to put RVs. Many don’t want to build. They come up with their family and friends for the season. People who live here year-round look across their lot to see four RVs over here, and four over there, and people partying all night long.”

Mayor Jim Trent sees this issue as another hurdle towns face when rebuilding after a fire disaster.

“FEMA told us about the stages our town would go through. We had the shock and the grief. Then everybody banded together. That was fantastic! Now I think we are at the anger stage. We’re asking ourselves, What kind of town do we want to be?”

Proponents for tightening RV restrictions argue that thickly forested neighborhoods scarred by the fire have become vast gravel swaths filled with RVs squeezed side by side.

City Councilor Michele Tesdal lives in Detroit with her husband and children. They have invested much to rebuild their home after the fire. A proponent of RV restrictions and needed enforcement of other important existing codes, Tesdal is advocating on behalf of full-time and many part-time residents to reduce the number of RVs allowed from four to a maximum of two.

In addition to noise in some of the more congested areas of town Tesdal believes, “For many, the loss of the forest is still devastating. People still expect to turn into their forested neighborhood. Instead, some see what resembles a county park with trucks lining the street. People want their neighborhood back.”

Housing Commissioner Tim Luke believes the city shouldn’t limit the number of RVs. “RVs have been part of the city’s culture for decades. Since the mills shut down, and people moved on, the town has evolved into a recreation community. Before the fire there were dozens and dozens of illegal 1950s and ’60s singlewides and shacks.”

While Luke agrees noise infractions need to be enforced, he believes the real question is how the city wants to define itself. “Do we want to be a city that honors the tradition of recreation or are we trying to become a Lake Oswego or a Sisters?”

As wildfires rage through the nation, researchers such as Caltlin Edgeley of Northern Arizona University are recognizing that there needs to be more conversation about wildfire recovery, and what people define as recovery in regards to community transformation.

“The human side is really challenging because it’s always evolving,” Edgeley said. “Humans move, fires come through in different ways, dynamics change — the same community could be completely different after a few years.”

As letters pour into the mayor’s office in preparation for an upcoming vote to determine what type of restrictions Detroit will impose, Trent hopes that resolving the RV ordinance will allow the town to move toward the next stage of recovery where everything settles down so the town can just go on being a community.