The Eagle Creek Fire redrew, but did not ruin, the view around Multnomah Falls. Historically, fire scars would always have figured on the Gorge landscape.
TRIAL BY FIRE written and photographed by Daniel O’Neil
THE FIRST DAYS of September 2017 caught the Columbia River Gorge by surprise. A wildfire rode gusty east winds from ridge to ridge on the Oregon side, down each drainage, through extremely dry forests full of beloved hiking trails and deep into the Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness, 48,861 acres in total. One careless teenager with a firework on the Eagle Creek trail had left a state stunned and devastated. But that was six years ago. Today along Eagle Creek, ferns, maples, and grasses grow green. Surviving conifers stand weighty with pinecones, and foot-tall Douglas-firs bask in the sunlight of an open canopy that provides hikers with new views. Wildflowers, rare in the cathedral-like pre-fire forest, now flourish along the re-opened trails, attracting bumblebees and butterflies. The charred trunks have brought in blackbacked woodpeckers, and even bald eagles have returned above Eagle Creek. 64 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE JULY | AUGUST 2023
