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Trial by Fire: Recovery and Lessons from Oregon's Recent Wildfires
Trial by Fire
The recovery from Oregon’s recent wildfires continues, with lessons for generations
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.
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.
John Giller knows wildfire, and he likes what he sees in the Gorge. Giller spent the last forty years fighting fire with the Forest Service, ending his time there as director of fire and aviation for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Lately, he’s changed his perspective on forest fires. “Fire ripping through the Gorge like that is natural,” Giller said. “It’s occurred many times throughout history there. It might take a little longer than we want to see some places recover, but in the scheme of things, fire’s not bad. It’s fixing the landscape.”
Since the Eagle Creek Fire, wildfires of alarming magnitude have raged through forests and communities across Oregon. Fueled by a mania for suppressing forest fires and by a hotter, drier climate, today’s fires burn more intensely than ever recorded. Some of the affected areas are recovering faster than others. All offer lessons on how Oregon and the West can and must coexist with this ancient ally of the woods.
“People should understand that these fires are not oneoff tragedies,” said Kevin Gorman, president of Friends of the Columbia Gorge. “They’re part of a constellation of changing climate and the natural role that fire plays in forests. We have to figure out how to live with it, how to adapt to it, and how to do what we can to minimize the impacts, whether it’s in how we build houses, how we build trails, or how we allow people to recreate in those areas.”
Only 15 percent of the Eagle Creek burn zone suffered a high-intensity burn. Just over half of it burned at low intensity or didn’t burn at all, helping to create a mosaic pattern that biologists, sightseers, and wildlife all appreciate. The new forest now hosts more biodiversity than it did pre-fire.
“A lot of ecological benefits came out of that fire,” Gorman said. “Fire is supposed to be part of the landscape, and it’s been blotted out for the most part. To have some of these new forests come in is actually really healthy.”
The iconic Eagle Creek blaze awoke all of Oregon to the reality of wildfire, and how it isn’t entirely destructive. That fire in the Gorge revealed nature’s inherent resiliency, a trait that some Oregon communities would soon require as they dealt with their own catastrophic wildfires.
As former head of firefighting for the Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, John Giller thought he was saving the forest from fire. Now he’s applying his experience to save the forest with fire, by means of pro-active prescribed burns.
Barbara Lee Giller
Late-afternoon sunlight finds green canopy along Eagle Creek. This mosaic pattern of live and fire-killed trees expands in all directions.
AS THE 2020 fire season dawned, Oregon’s forests invited fire on a massive scale. A century of fire suppression had allowed dangerous amounts of biomass to accumulate. With high temperatures and extended drought, the changed climate helped make the woods extra flammable. Only a spark was lacking, and by Labor Day there were so many sparks, accompanied by a historic wind storm, that the state couldn’t keep track.
One million acres burned that summer, destroying more than 4,000 homes and killing nine people. Six of the year’s major fires ravaged more than 100,000 acres each. John Giller led the response that year with 3,000 firefighters under his command. “A lot of things came to a head in 2020,” he said. “The term that was often used was, ‘This is unprecedented,’ and that was for good reason. But towards the end of the season, I wanted to remind folks that this was unprecedented, but it’s not anymore.”
Several fires stood out for their devastation. The Almeda Fire only touched some 3,200 acres between Ashland and Medford. But within 48 hours it had devoured over 3,000 structures and caused three fatalities. Part wildfire, part city-sized structure fire, the flames followed the Bear Creek greenway like a fuse through the towns of Talent and Phoenix, erratically leaving homes and businesses burnt or unscathed.
The Almeda Fire spread from Ashland to Medford during the Labor Day windstorm of 2020. In Talent and Phoenix, neighborhoods and trailer parks burned, but residents found strength in community and resilience.
In Talent the fire claimed around 700 residences and wiped out 60 percent of the town’s brick-and-mortar commercial properties. Today, Talent’s downtown commercial district remains a mix of untouched, fully-operational buildings and grassy lots with remnant foundations. So far, about 75 percent of the town’s housing has been rebuilt or is in the process, while less than 20 percent of the commercial area has returned.
Some of the neighborhoods in Talent and Phoenix look as though nothing ever happened. Others still bear witness to the fire of 2020.
According to Talent mayor Darby Ayers-Flood, recovery is moving at a good pace. But full recovery, she figures, will take a decade. The city’s urban renewal plan has sparked controversy due to funding and other concerns, but when a town is asked to rebuild itself from the ashes, opinions on how to do so quickly divide. Still, Ayers-Flood remains impressed by the sense of community that has emerged from Jackson County’s worst disaster to date.
“There’s a renewal in faith, in people, when you see a community that’s had destruction to the measure that we’ve had come together,” she said. “People who don’t even know each other are holding their hand out to one another, trying to figure out what everybody needs and how they can help. It’s a remarkable thing to witness.”
Built in 1924, the Malmgren Garage in Talent has housed a variety of businesses and served as a landmark. Scott English helps inform the public about the building’s reincarnation, which will offer retail space and two apartments.
As residents rebuild their homes, local restoration efforts have replanted Coalman Creek and others that flow through Talent and Phoenix.
Matthew Farrington benefitted from Talent’s tight-knit community after he lost his record shop, Biscuits & Vinyl, to the Almeda Fire. He reopened in February 2021, across the street from his former location, in a retail building left unharmed by the flames. Insurance did not cover the full extent of Farrington’s inventory, but locals and other record fans stepped in, donating albums and buying new finds.
“It was devastating and kind of uplifting,” Farrington said. “It’s sad to lose all the inventory and some cool personal stuff, but it’s very reassuring that people appreciate what I’m doing. That made it easier to come back and keep going.”
Farrington’s business has grown since the fire, but his current space is smaller than before. He’s making do, though. “I haven’t heard about anybody rebuilding these spaces anytime soon, so I’m just sitting where I’m at, happy to be up and running again,” he said.
Matthew Farrington, owner of Biscuits & Vinyl record shop, lost some irreplaceable posters and albums in the Almeda Fire, but he relocated across the street in Talent and quickly restocked his bins thanks to community support.
Up the road in Phoenix, where the Almeda Fire ravaged homes and trailer parks and businesses like in Talent, a group of committed green thumbs has Blue Heron Community Garden producing food again. The garden lies along the greenway, and it burned completely—even the tools melted. But donations and grants supplied wood to rebuild the fence and raised beds, and Phoenix highschoolers built the new sheds. “There are a lot of stories of resilience here,” said Sandra Wine, a Blue Heron board member and gardener. “We survived that fire. We can pull a few weeds.”
After the Almeda Fire, longtime members of Phoenix’s Blue Heron Community Garden, like Eisa Tiaatutu, rebuilt and replanted in time to harvest again the next year.
THE DRIVE into the Santiam Canyon still reminds of disaster. Forest roads remain closed, houses and businesses lie in various states of completion—rebuilt, gone, rebuilding, or untouched by fire—and many of the mountainsides, once evergreen, stand gray and skeletal now. But underneath those incinerated trees, communities pound nails, plant trees, and plan for their future, nonstop since the gale and flames of Labor Day 2020 finally died away.
Wildfire had its way with the string of towns from Lyons to Idanha, up to the North Fork and Breitenbush communities, and deep into the woods. The Lionshead and Beachie Creek fires each burned about 200,000 acres, and they combined near Detroit Lake, leaving the town there the hardest hit.
Manufactured and custom-built homes have begun to reoccupy neighborhoods in Detroit, three years after the devastating Labor Day firestorm of 2020.
Michele Tesdal, her husband, and their four kids lost most everything in the fire. Their Detroit neighborhood, once forested, now lies exposed like a clearcut. In exchange, they got views of the surrounding, albeit torched, mountains, and they developed relationships with neighbors they hardly knew. As they rebuild their home, the Tesdals, like many others, continue to live full-time on their lot in an RV.
“I get choked up talking about a few things, but we’re past the emotional part of the fire,” Tesdal said. “It’s ax to the grindstone now, get this done because no one’s going to do it for you.”
In the year after the fire, the Tesdals tried to rebuild, but pandemic-era prices were too high and contractors were in short supply. They considered selling their lot and moving away, but even that had become unaffordable. As was common after Oregon’s recent wildfires, insurance didn’t cover the total cost to rebuild. Without charitable labor and grant money from donations, Tesdal said they couldn’t have rebuilt.
Michele and Don Tesdal have persevered through the complicated rebuild process, happy to be back home in their Detroit neighborhood, yet still with work to do.
This scenario plays out up and down the Santiam Canyon as life returns. Luckily, the area had services in place pre-fire that were quickly able to establish a recovery fund from nationwide donations and help full-time residents navigate red tape. Santiam Disaster Services, organized by Santiam Hospital, has distributed about $3 million so far, helping some 250 households fully rebuild. Almost 100 cases, including the Tesdals’, remain open, and two dozen households still need to find a rental. Marion County recently secured another $12 million for the rebuild effort.
“We don’t like to say pre-fire status because nobody gets back to that emotionally,” said Melissa Baurer, who leads the Santiam Disaster Services case managers. “But, for structures, we’re working to get households back to the status they had before, making sure people feel comfortable and have as much as they had before the fire. We’re trained for that, but we also take a lot of pride in our area.”
The flames spared the Canyon’s school buildings, in Mill City, but scattered its students into temporary housing across the area. Many will not return, their families having decided to relocate instead of rebuild, and the loss of elementary students could mean funding shortages for years to come. But enrollment is up as new families come to the Canyon, and school buses still fetch displaced students from as far as Salem and Lebanon.
“I think we’ll be feeling the effects of this for many years to come,” said schools superintendent Todd Miller. Miller grew up in the Canyon, so he’s reassured by the nature of his mountain community. “The people up here are resilient and self-reliant. They’re fighters. There’s a determination not to let this take anybody down.”
As Canyon towns grapple with issues like water treatment and a lack of businesses, as tax revenues decline and tourists stop only for a bathroom break, another unforeseen dilemma polarizes Detroit in particular. Newcomers who bought burned-out residential lots have parked RVs there as second homes, remaking the character of neighborhoods and forcing Detroit’s city council to respond with regulations.
“It’s very complex,” said Tesdal, who is also a city council member. She likens Detroit’s issues to whack-a-mole. “You hit one, and they keep popping up. As a council, we never expected to problem-solve bringing back a city.”
The 2020 fire reshaped the Santiam Canyon for generations. Just like ridgetops visible in the Eagle Creek area, the forest here will need decades to regrow, a grave reminder of fire’s wide reach. Like in Talent and Phoenix, the fire has built character and camaraderie in the Canyon. As life recovers, other take-aways from the 2020 fires remain obscure.
“One of the biggest disasters in the State of Oregon happened, and we’re not able to fully talk about it,” Giller said, referring to the analysis reports normally completed by government agencies to learn from incidents that don’t turn out as planned. “So much happened in 2020 that nobody even knows where to start. I think there are some lessons to be learned, but people are human, and this one was too much.”
One point does stand clear for Giller. “The only thing that would’ve made a difference with those 2020 wildfires is if 50 years ago we’d have realized that wildfires weren’t doing as much harm as we thought,” he said.
The Tesdals’ neighborhood above Detroit lay thick with second-growth Douglas firs until the 2020 fires. Volunteers helped the Tesdals mill their dead trees, and the wood has provided floors, trim and a ceiling in their new home, along with a rebuilt chicken coop.
DON GENTRY has mapped the forests east of Klamath Falls with memories. Here he hunted deer with his dad and brother. Over there, his people used to camp on the river and fish, and up on that ridge, they prayed. The Bootleg Fire, which burned extraordinarily hot and torched 413,000 acres in 2021, severely altered that map.
As with all fires, silver linings exist somewhere in the ashes of the Bootleg Fire. Gentry, the Klamath Tribes’ natural resources specialist and former tribal chairman, finds a few. “It may take a long time because of the devastation, the complete destruction of the forest from the fires that came, but there is opportunity to continue to move things in the right direction,” he said. “There’s a better understanding, by the public and by the legislators, of what the problems are.”
Don Gentry knows the lands affected by the Bootleg Fire by heart and through instinct. His Klamath ancestors lived with wildfire, an element Gentry and the Klamath Tribes’ fire program are reintroducing with care.
In Southern Oregon’s hot, arid forests, fires historically burned frequently, every three to fifteen years, but at low intensity. The regular flare-ups would clear the ground of flammable Ponderosa pine needles and burn out the understory. The Klamath Tribes even used fire to improve areas for hunting and gathering. But the Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs extinguished the natural fire regime almost a century ago, mainly to protect timber revenue. Aided by climate change, megafires like the Bootleg erupt as a result.
Attuned to their land, Klamath Tribes have begun reasserting themselves as co-stewards in forest management. Their approach involves thinning undergrowth in the Ponderosa pine forest, which includes removal of species like lodgepole pine and white fir that natural fires would have controlled, and then, crucially, reintroducing fire to let it creep around and consume the fuel load.
The technique works. Several stands treated in this way survived the Bootleg Fire. Today they resemble oases of green in the charred landscape. The Klamath Tribes have an agreement with the Forest Service to continue treating the land with fire like this, and government funding has allowed the Klamath Tribes to develop their own fire program and hire experts like Tim Sexton to manage their fire program.
Sexton, a five-decade veteran in fire management, sees several culprits behind the state’s recent fires: the fuel accumulation in Oregon’s forests, caused by fire suppression and dense plantations, and extreme drought. “With climate change, we need to make our forests as resilient and sustainable as we can,” he said. “Modern science suggests that you need to put fire on the landscape if you want to inoculate it from a severe fire.”
Until then, fire will put itself on the landscape in ways even fire behavior specialists cannot predict or comprehend. But recovery and lessons from Oregon’s latest infernos give hope. The Eagle Creek burn demonstrates how well a forest can recover from wildfire. Communities in Talent, Phoenix, the Santiam Canyon, and other fire-affected Oregon towns all prove how people can survive, rebuild and prepare for future incidents—that humans can live with fire. Now, following the Bootleg Fire and the many others that have lately ravaged the state, a new path forward has emerged from the haze.
“Smokey Bear was very effective,” Giller said. “We’ve got to change the public’s perception about fire. There are consequences to us living with fire. So we’ll have to come up with bigger ideas of how to protect communities and let them know they’re safe. It’s a compromise on a lot of different levels. But the other side of that is we just keep doing this battle we lose every summer.”
