Tillamook Burn
[1] An oppressive, acrid smoke filled the neighboring valleys; ashes, and cinders, and the charred needles of trees fell in the streets of Tillamook; and debris from the fire reached ships 500 miles (800 km) at sea.
The cause of the blaze on the Salmonberry River was mysterious, and many believed it had been set by an incendiary balloon launched by the Japanese (due to the fire occurring in the waning days of World War II), which had been carried to Oregon by the jet stream.
The third fire was perhaps the best known, after the initial wildfire, because it affected much of the forested mountains along the popular highways between Portland and the recreational destinations of the ocean beaches.
The lumber from these operations played an important part in providing wood resources to the United States during World War II.
Throughout the subsequent years, miles of roads and railroad lines and were built through the forest to the various logging camps providing enhanced access.
This made it easier for forestry restoration, maintenance, and fire prevention operations allowing them eventually to get a handle on the continued series of burns, however it had the secondary effect of creating new issues with erosion among a terrain known for landslides.
The repeated fires led some to think that large wildfires in the area were inevitable and that the land was now too damaged from the intense heat to ever again sustain forests.
There they stand, millions of ghostly firs, now stark against the sky, which were green as the sea and twice as handsome, until an August day of 1933, when a tiny spark blew into a hurricane of fire that removed all life from 300,000 acres (120,000 ha) of the finest timber even seen.
Current environmental beliefs have questioned this assumption, and both the proportions and specific parts of this land that will be logged or conserved for wildlife are in dispute.
Poet and author Albert Drake titled a 1970s book of poems and essays, Tillamook Burn, from his experiences growing up in Oregon.
