This year’s wildland fire season was so bad that Gov. Tina Kotek ordered the Oregon Legislature into special session Thursday to belatedly pay the bills.

The fires set records for size — burning approximately 1.9 million acres of public and private land — and for the state’s costs for fighting those fires, an estimated $352 million. Months later, many firefighting outfits and other contractors await payment, in part because the federal government hasn’t come through with its share of the money.

A lot of work was done behind the scenes to make Thursday one of the smoothest, shortest special sessions in recent memory. This is how the day played out:

11 a.m. Thursday: The Senate holds a routine floor session as part of this week’s Legislative Days.

Senators sit at tables in their temporary chamber, a hearing room. The old part of the Oregon State Capitol remains under reconstruction. The Senate and House chambers are supposed to be ready in January for the 2025 Legislature in January.

On a 24-3 vote, senators approve a slate of Kotek’s reappointments to state boards, councils and committees. (Three of the 30 senators are absent, excused by Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego.)

Much of the floor session is spent heaping praise on retiring colleagues, including ones barred from reelection because of their lengthy boycott in 2023. Among them is Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, who notes that he is wearing the Oregon necktie given him by the late Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem.

Wagner appoints an equal number of Democrats and Republicans to the Joint Special Session Committee on Wildfire Funding: Sen. Kate Lieber, D-Portland, co-chair; Sen. Winsvey Campos, D-Aloha; Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale; Sen. Fred Girod, R-Silverton, who lost his home and pets in the 2020 wildfires; Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena; and Sen. Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro.

Senate Republican Leader Daniel Bonham, The Dalles, has told me he expects a smooth special session. There is bipartisan agreement on the legislation, and the equal Democrat-Republican wildfire committee is a great start. Does this signal a new approach, one that will carry into the potentially contentious 2025 Legislature?

2:06 p.m. The special legislative session begins as the Senate convenes only six minutes late.

For the opening ceremony, Wagner quotes from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Booming noise from Capitol construction — as if someone is banging a giant gong — occasionally intrudes on the legislative business.

2:11 p.m. The House convenes.

Following the bipartisan script, House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, also names equal D-R members on the wildfire committee: Rep. Tawna Sanchez, D-Portland, co-chair; Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth; Rep. Dacia Grayber, D-Portland, a firefighter/paramedic with Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue; Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo; Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner; and Rep. Kim Wallan, R-Medford.

2:45 p.m. The committee meets to consider Senate Bill 5801. To cover unpaid bills and other expenses, it would send $191.5 million to the Oregon Department of Forestry and $26.6 million to the Department of the State Fire Marshal.

There is no public testimony. A four-person committee heard from two fire chiefs and a firefighters union leader on Wednesday.

Republican Findley is aghast that firefighters and others still haven’t received the millions of dollars owed them. He calls for State Forester Cal Mukumoto’s resignation and says legislators never were told agencies were running out of money.

“If the tables were turned, the attorney general would be throwing somebody in jail for the activities we have done,” Findley tells his colleagues.

Democrat Evans praises Kotek, along with the Democratic and Republican leadership, for putting together the special session on a few weeks’ notice.

“This is what government is supposed to do,” he says, adding that it would have been easy to delay action until the 2025 Legislature. No one other than the unpaid vendors would have known.

Nearly 13,000 firefighters, many coming from far away, battled this year’s fires on federal, state or private land in Oregon.

“We have bills, and we need to pay them. It’s a moral obligation,” Republican Hansell says. “If we don’t pay our bills now, why would anyone want to come help us?”

2:56 p.m. The committee unanimously endorses SB 5801, sending it to the Senate.

State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple and other uniformed firefighters are in the audience. As Lieber exits, she thanks them for their work.

3:30 p.m. The Senate reconvenes.

Following the agreed-upon script, Republican Bonham moves suspension of the rules, so today’s bills don’t have to be read word-for-word before passage. The motion passes 27 to 0. (In the past, Republicans sometimes blocked rules suspension to slow the majority Democrats’ agenda.)

3:43 p.m. Debate begins with Democrat Lieber explaining the wildfire bill.

Republican Girod speaks of the trauma he and his wife, Lori, experienced when wildfire overwhelmed their beloved house outside Lyons along the North Santiam River: “To wake up and everything that makes you, you is gone. Everything.”

“It really hurts that fire is such a low priority in this state that we can’t even afford to pay the contractors that we hire to fight fires,” he says. “But it goes deeper than that.”

The bill passes 25 to 2. The “no” votes come from Republican Sen. Dennis Linthicum, Beatty and Sen. Brian Boquist, Dallas.

Hansell presents Senate Concurrent Resolution 301, which adjourns the special session sine die.

He explains “sine die” is Latin for “without a day,” but what folks in his Eastern Oregon district might say is, “Lights out.” A University of Oregon graduate, Hansell says the undefeated and No. 1 nationally ranked University of Oregon football team has been “sine die” to its opponents.

3:55 p.m. The Senate adjourns its half of the special session.

4:03 p.m. The House reconvenes but quickly recesses while the bills travel through the paperwork process.

4:41 p.m. The House reconvenes. Like the Senate, the House suspends the word-for-word reading.

Fifteen of the 60 members are absent, excused by Fahey. That still leaves plenty of representatives eager to discuss a bill whose passage is certain. In the crowded room representatives must hold up a card when they want to speak.

Some representatives pay attention to their colleagues’ remarks. Others are on their cellphones, apparently texting or emailing.

Retiring Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, says he’s been known for voting against fire funding that takes money from schools and other important services. He wants timber companies and landowners, especially Wall Street investors, to pay more in taxes and wildfire protection.

Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Stayton, says the lack of payment has forced many businesses to take out loans to meet payroll. He accuses Oregon’s leaders of shutting down the forests. He calls on Congress and incoming President Donald Trump to reform the Endangered Species Act and Equal Access to Justice Act, which he says are way out of balance.

Democrat Grayber points out that two-thirds of the acres burned were rangeland, not forest.

“This keeps me up at night as a firefighter,” she says. “We are going to be faced with fires like these again. We talk about this as a historic wildfire season. I think we run the risk of this being the new normal.”

Several Republicans call on next year’s Legislature to address future wildfire funding. Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, says Oregon needs a bold, visionary approach to wildfire prevention, intervention and recovery. Rep. Court Boice, R-Gold Beach, compares Texas’ nonrenewable black gold with Oregon’s fully renewable green gold.

“Let’s team up together and figure out how we’re going to fund this. Let’s not make this a partisan issue,” adds Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane.

5:12 p.m. Voting begins. The wildfire funding bill passes 41 to 2 with Holvey and Rep. James Hieb, R-Canby, against it.

The only “no” votes today have come from lawmakers who won’t return in 2025.

5:18 p.m. The House adjourns sine die. The special session is over.

6:10 p.m. As she heads out the Oregon Capitol door, Speaker Fahey tells me she’s signed the legislation. So has President Wagner. The bill is on its way to Gov. Kotek.