October, 2018
The Eagle Creek wildfire
I considered not writing about this topic … the Eagle Creek fire. But it was a big part of my experience here at Ainsworth State Park on the Columbia River. Also, after the last post in this blog, where I mentioned the fire, three of you readers (all local friends of mine) have asked for more information about my experience relating to the aftermath of the fire. So that’s what this post will be about.
I won’t post photos of the fire itself (it happened in 2017). I will post just four photos that I took around my one campsite during this current visit in 2018. You’ll see new green undergrowth and trees with lots of green needles on them. But that’s here in the campground and that’s a year after the fire. Most everything else that was in the path of that wildfire is still dead. The photos you’ll see below are what I looked at every day, from my trailer where it was parked. Some days it was hard to go outside, but I took a deep breath and went anyway. Thank heavens the smell of the fire was gone, but the destruction was still there. I’m not including photos of the much worse damage that I drove through any time I went anywhere.
It hurts. If anyone doesn’t want to read about this (and I wouldn’t blame you for that), then just skip this post. My next post about this trip will be a whole lot more pleasant, I promise.
In early September 2017, just south of the Columbia River in Oregon, in a camping area above the Eagle Creek Canyon, a number of teen age kids were playing with illegally-purchased fireworks (purchased by parents and knowingly given to the kids by parents, and the parents later admitted they knew the fireworks were illegal). The kids were playing with fireworks during a burn ban (that the parents later admitted they knew about). One of the boys threw a lit piece of fireworks into the Eagle Creek Canyon while the other kids watched. One of the other kids video-recorded it. The kids admitted they could see smoke in the canyon afterwards, but decided to walk away and not tell anyone.
Just one piece of fireworks started a fire which became a raging wildfire.
The fire started early afternoon and was finally reported around 4pm on September 2, 2017 (not reported by the kids nor by their parents … the kids were seen sauntering away, the parents did/said nothing). Eventually, when the fire became large enough, other people saw the fire and reported it. The fire burned and spread and burned and spread for three months while fire fighters fought the blaze as it moved through the forest, through towns, burning homes, until it was finally officially “contained” (though still not completely put out) on November 30, 2017.
More than 50,000 acres of forest burned, some of it old growth forest. At one point, more than 31,000 acres were actively burning with fire fighters unable to contain it.
Today, more than one year later, the Historic Columbia River Highway is still closed due to mud and rock slides because trees, bushes, even moss are gone. There is one stunningly gorgeous canyon in the area that used to be known for its beauty. It was one of the most popular hikes in the area. The sides of the canyon are now collapsing, falling into the creek at the bottom, blocking the canyon in one place, because root systems no longer hold the rocks because the trees and shrubs and grasses and moss were burned and killed. There used to be fish in that creek, but the creek is now dammed and there are no fish. This has happened dozens, maybe hundreds of times over, in other creeks and lakes in the area, because of this fire.
The Ainsworth State Park, where I was camping, is inside the burn area, although the campground itself suffered minimal damage. (I’ll tell you why in a bit.) On my outings from the campsite each day, I drove through some of the burned areas for miles around Ainsworth State Park; I saw the burned trees, the empty land, the mud slides. I imagined the dead animals and birds and frogs and fish. Miraculously, no humans died … no civilians and no fire fighters died. But millions of other critters did die … not to mention the rivers and lakes that are now dried up or damaged from mud slides where the fish will never return, not in my lifetime anyway, and maybe never.
Every day that I was here (six altogether), when I was driving through those areas, I would lift my camera to take a photo. And then I couldn’t. My heart felt so heavy that my arms couldn’t move. I’ve never experienced that before. But then, I’ve never driven through such devastation.
When I first arrived with my trailer at Ainsworth State Park on Sunday afternoon, there was a roadblock so no one could access the old Historic Highway except people who were camping at Ainsworth. The nice Ranger at the roadblock took the print copy of my reservation that I’d brought with me, and he saw my travel trailer hooked behind my truck, and he motioned me through the roadblock. But there was no one else around so I paused and started to chat with him.
He talked openly with me. He was a Ranger here at Ainsworth State Park, one year ago, during the fire. During the fire, he drove up and down highway I-84 watching the fire come closer and closer. He saw first-hand the fire jump ACROSS the 4-lane freeway … through the air … he said he slammed on his brakes and just sat and watched the fire ignite hundreds of trees on the other side of the freeway in mere seconds.
While he stood there at the roadblock with me and told me all of this, tears came quickly to his eyes.
He told me about the trails through these old forests and the trails inside Ainsworth State Park that are now closed, maybe gone for the rest of his life. He told me about the trails he used to hike, as a boy and more recently as a Forest Ranger. The trails that don’t exist anymore. He told me about the animals he had seen … bear, cougar, elk, deer, rabbits, marmots, raccoons, skunks, bats and beavers, porcupine, wolves, fox, coyotes, river otters, turtles, snakes, owls, woodpeckers, bluebirds, hawks, eagle, osprey (probably more that I can’t remember) … all of whom must have died in the fire or soon after. He didn’t cry out loud as he stood there, he didn’t weep, but the tears ran down his face and he didn’t bother to wipe them off. Keep in mind this fire happened a year ago, and he still can’t hardly talk about it. He spoke about not understanding why people are so cavalier about caring for wildlife and wild country, why we don’t insist that our government protect the land … and in so doing, protect us. He didn’t understand why, even if our government won’t act, why WE won’t act to protect the land, the wild land.
He talked about knowing that some Park Rangers have been proposing that State and Federal Parks be closed for one year, to make people aware of the damage that people cause … from fires they start, from garbage, from pollution, from invasion of and destruction of natural habitat. But he said what he would do if he were King would be to require every citizen of the USA to spend a week in the wild … safe, yes, but still, a week in the wild. No cell phones, no radios, no cameras, no computers, no electronic games, just you and the wilderness. He thought maybe then people would realize how important the wilderness is.
The wildfires in the USA and Canada in 2017 and again 2018 were mostly human caused. Reports are that 85-90% of them were human caused … from campfires not put out, cigarettes thrown from cars, vehicle exhaust systems sparking and spewing gasoline, or vehicle parts dragging on the pavement and sparking and so starting fires in the grass along the roadside. (At least one 2018 wildfire was caused by part of the suspension of an RV dragging on the pavement and throwing sparks.)
As mentioned, there was minimal fire damage inside the Ainsworth campground, but there definitely was fire damage there … some of it right next to my campsite. Another Ranger at Ainsworth, on another one of my days there, told me that fire fighters had taken over the Ainsworth campground and all of them were living there during the Eagle Creek fire. They set up sprinklers throughout the campground, connected to every water source available. They were sure the fire wouldn’t reach them. But reach them it did. At 4 am one morning, the sirens blew and everyone was told to GRAB WHAT YOU CAN AND LEAVE NOW! The wind had shifted and the fire fighters themselves were at risk of being burned. The men and women grabbed what they could and left, leaving many of their belongings behind.
But they also left the sprinklers on! If they hadn’t done that, Ainsworth would have burned. As it is, there are trees inside the campground that are down and completely burned, many lower parts of trunks are burned of trees that are still standing (and still growing). The sprinklers prevented the fire from completely consuming those few acres of forest. It might not be very many acres that were saved, but it was something.
Two friends of mine (husband and wife) happened to be driving east at night on the Washington side of the Columbia River when the fire was at its worst on the Oregon side. They told me they stopped the car and watched … and simply sat in the car and cried. I still have the photo he took that night of the fire on the Oregon side. It’s horrendous.
All of the Rangers in every campground where I’ve stayed in 2017 and 2018 tell me there are three main reasons for these wildfires. 1) human behavior; 2) climate change such that the ground and the foliage are so incredibly dry and brittle; 3) reduced funding from the US government for parks personnel and fire fighting personnel and equipment. Some of the Rangers added a fourth reason … mining operations on federal land have proven to increase fires, yet the US government is allowing even more mining on federal land. Every one of the four reasons for these excessive wildfires can be reduced or eliminated by us. Or they can continue. What’s your choice? What do you want your world to look like?
Comments to this post have been disabled. If you want to do something, if you want to help, then please use your voice not to comment here, but to communicate with your representatives in Congress and your local state representatives and ask them to address those four causes of wildfires. Be specific. Send a second request next week, and again next month, and again the next month, just keep on sending them. And vote.
My very best to every one of you. Thanks for reading. I think maybe I’ve saved the most beautiful photos from the best part of this trip for the very next post in this Ainsworth series … stay tuned.