FILE - In the aftermath of the Eagle Creek fire, crews had to replace many miles of trails in the Columbia River Gorge. This work party was restoring infrastructure in the gorge in June 2018.
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service
Labor Day marks the seventh anniversary of the Eagle Creek Fire, which burned over 50,000 acres of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area over three months in 2017.
Infrastructure, such as bridges over creeks and streams, burned, and trails had to be closed. A six-mile stretch of the Historic Columbia River Highway was closed for more than a year, restricting access to well-loved spots like Bridal Veil and Multnomah Falls.
About 9,000 trees in danger of falling on roads had to be cut, and more than 3,000 feet of protective fencing installed before the historic road was deemed safe again.
Chris Harper, a fire management officer for the U.S. Forest Service, said the parts of the Gorge hit hard by the Eagle Creek Fire looks different now. But while vegetation is struggling to return in some steep and rocky spots, most areas are recovering well.
“Overall we’ve had a pretty vigorous response,” Harper said. “A lot of trees are coming back. A lot of brush is coming back. You just have to ask our trail crew, and they’ll talk to you about all the brush they have to hack through, just to clear trails.”
Related: Some Residents Allowed To Return Home During Eagle Creek Fire
A lot of burned trees still look like blackened toothpicks on the landscape. But they make good habitat for certain animals and will gradually fall and rot over the next 100 years.
“The branches will come off first. And then the actual bole of the tree will start breaking apart,” Harper said. “Then there are other trees that the roots will rot out and it’ll just fall over.”
FILE - Two replacement footbridges were flown onto Eagle Creek Trail on Oct. 23, 2019, to replace Fern and High Creek bridges burned in the Eagle Creek Fire.
Courtesy of Edan Lira via U.S. Forest Service
Harper said that while Eagle Creek looks different, the beauty remains.
“It’s certainly something that’s changed the character of the area,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of dead trees where we had a lot of green trees before. And it’s a lot more open in a lot of places and has changed the amount of sunlight that things are getting.”
Harper estimates it could take 50 years before the parts of the gorge that burned in Eagle Creek look like they did before the fire. A couple of remote trails, including Ruckel Creek and Oneonta, remain closed. That’s largely because of unstable ground and the sheer number of trees that fell into streams and created log jams.
A 15-year-old started the fire with a carelessly tossed firecracker. The young man has made a number of payments towards the $36 million dollars he was ordered to pay in restitution. The amount of those payments has not been disclosed.
Sept. 2 also marks the fourth anniversary of the unprecedented 2020 Labor Day fires. Drought conditions and winds whipped up five fires over three days. All told, the fires killed 11 people, destroyed more than 4,000 homes and consumed 850,000 acres of forestland.
There was the Archie Creek fire just east of Sutherlin, the Beachie Creek fire east of Salem, the Holiday Farm Fire south of Sweet Home, the Lionshead Fire west of Bend, and the Riverside Fire east of Molalla.
