The amount of total acres burned (1.8 million acres) by wildfires in 2024 is among the most in known Oregon history, according to a recent Stateman Journal article and statistics from the Forest Service Research Data Archive.
Like floods, forest fires are apart of the natural cycle that humans have tried to prevent, only to realize that these are important for healthy forests. A forest needs periodic fire to clear out brush and dead wood, making room for young trees. A forest that is overdue for a fire can become dangerously unstable for huge fires with greater destruction. Major forest fires occur roughly every 5-1000 years.
FireWeatherAvalanche.org provides real-time updates on wildfires and avalanches. The map will automatically list the total number of fires that appear on the screen. Many points provide fire specifics: Fire status, size, initial location, fire unit, fuels, current weather, fire growth potential, incident overview, and basic info such as the cause, when the fire was discovered, the location and coordinates, incident commander, current situation, planned outlook, incident contact, and dispatch contact.
The following content is about the Great Forest Fire of 1845 which burned 1.5 million acres, the largest wildfire in Oregon History. It was viewed on August 29, 2024, at Cliffhanger76.tripod.com. Please note that the content has not been verified for accuracy.
Footnote: Old Peter Belleque (pronounced Blake), an emigrant from Canada, was originally named Pierre, but preferring an American name changed it to Peter. Two of his grandsons, Ernest and Peter, lived in the Cloverdale area all their lives. Pete is the only survivor at this date of May, 1986.
The fire has two areas of historical significance. It's the first forest fire recorded in Oregon. Evidence of the remnants of thousands of snags killed by the great fire of 1845 can still be found, extending from Tillamook southward 60 miles to Newport and from the westward boundary of the Willamette Valley for 40 miles to the ocean beaches. This encompasses 1,500,000 acres, the largest area of old growth destroyed by a single forest fire in the United States.
Siuslaw National Forest
Hebo Ranger District
31525 Hwy 22
Hebo, OR 97122
Phone: (503) 392-3161
The north half of Lincoln and south half of Tillamook counties were engulfed by flames, destroying most of the old growth timber of the area.
Forty-nine years after this fire the editor of the Sheridan Sun journeyed to Woods. As he traveled through the Coast Range, he noticed that as far as the eye could see in all directions, stood dead and charred old growth snags. Because of the vast expanse of a totally destroyed forest that was once so green and majestic, he became curious about its origin and decided to look into its history.
While at Woods he met Peter Belleque, a commercial fisherman, who was knowledgeable of pioneer events and threw light upon the great forest conflagration of 1845, not hitherto published.
Mr. Belleque was born in 1836 near Champoeg of a French father and Indian mother. The fire's origin was near Champoeg when he was nine years of age. He related that several years before 1845, an English sailing ship entered the Columbia River. On board was Mr. Johnson who was the ship's cook. Being dissatisfied with his occupation he deserted ship at first opportunity and traveled down the Willamette Valley to near the present community of Champoeg. Here he took up a land claim and immediately started clearing his land of brush and logs.
The summer of 1845 was unusually hot and dry. Springtime was short of rain causing all vegetation to mature early and dry up by the first of July.
Most of the Willamette Valley was covered with tall grass. The Indians for centuries periodically burned portions of the valley to kill off the brush and encourage the growth of grass. The new grass growth made ideal forage for the numerous deer and elk that inhabited the valley. This was made to order for the Indians who depended upon the larger game for their livlihood.
Mr. Johnson thought conditions were just right to burn the debris from his cleared land. He touched it off and succeeded in getting a good burn, but unfortunately a west wind blew a path of flames across the Willamette Valley into the Coast Range. The wind direction suddenly changed into a hot, dry east wind. This fanned the flames into a frenzy, making an end run around the previously burned path, blazing westward across the valley toward the Coast Range.
The hot wind fanned it day and night and the whole valley was filled with a billowing pall of smoke. So dense did the smoke become that the settlers were forced to eat their midday meal by candlelight. Many of the settlers felt the end of the world was at hand.
The flames reached the Coast Range covered by a thick forest. With this added fuel, the flames lashed out to the north, west and south.
At this point, let's see what is in the path of this conflagration. Old growth virgin timber, 400 to 600 years old, extended from the Willamette Valley to the ocean beaches and indefinitely north and south.
At this early date of 1845 there were no settlers west of the Coast Range. The only inhabitants were small tribes of Indians, located at bays or where sources of water flowed into the ocean. Such tribes were located on Siletz Bay, Neskowin Creek, Woods, Sandlake and Netarts Bay.
Several years before 1894, Peter Belleque interviewed Dick Harna, retired on the Siletz Reservation, about the fire in Tillamook County. Harna was the chief of the Nestuccas living near the present town of Woods. Harna, according to Belleque, gave a vivid description of the fire, as witnessed by himself.
He and a portion of his tribe were encamped on the Big Nestucca River, four miles upstream from the present site of the village of Woods.
For several weeks, according to the Indians, there had been a great deal of smoke. Each day it grew denser and filled the Indians with new alarm. Finally, one night the Nestuccas were awakened by a bright red glare in the eastern sky. By sunrise great flames were seen leaping skyward from the summits of the nearest hills. So rapidly did the flames approach that the terrified Indians had no time to gather up their belongings, but hastily jumping into their dugouts, paddled down the river to the ocean beach with all possible speed.
Below Woods, about 1 1/2 miles is a sandspit between Nestucca Bay and the ocean where its greatest width is 1/2 mile. The bare sand afforded a safe refuge for Harna and his people for some weeks until a heavy rain put out the fire. Their only source of subsistence was fish.
Paddling up the river to their haunts, gruesome sights met their eyes at every turn. Here and there piled up in groups were bands of elk and deer charred crisp; bear found nearly barbecued; and panthers, with their bodies in the water, showed their ghastly cooked heads.
Another band of Indians retreated to Sandlake where they found safe assylum until the welcome rains.
Search the Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer for wildfire hazard areas throughout Oregon.
Oregonians who live in the state’s highest-risk wildfire zones will be subject to stricter building codes and requirements under a new hazard map released January 2025 by state fire officials. The yearslong process to produce a map that designates every part of Oregon as low, moderate or high risk of wildfires came about following the historic 2020 Labor Day wildfires that killed nine and destroyed thousands of homes.
All 1.9 million tax lots statewide were assessed. Of those, roughly 106,000 lots, or 6% of the state, will be subject to new rules that require creating defensible space or using fire-resistant building materials due to a high wildfire risk and location within the wildland-urban interface.
The data was developed by Chris Dunn and Andy McEncoy at Oregon State University, and the wildfire risk map was issued by the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF).
