Menu
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Feature
    • Arts
    • Astrology
    • Business
    • Community
    • Employment
    • Event Stories
    • From the Pioneer
    • Government
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Non Profit News
    • Obituary
    • Public Safety
    • Podcast Interview Articles
    • Pioneer Pulse Podcast: Politics, Palette, and Planet – the Playlist
  • Weather
  • Guest Column
    • Perspectives
    • Don Backman Photos
    • Ardent Gourmet
    • Kitchen Maven
    • I’ve been thinking
    • Jim Heffernan
    • The Littoral Life
    • Neal Lemery
    • View From Here
    • Virginia Carrell Prowell
    • Words of Wisdom
  • Things to do
    • Calendar
    • Tillamook County Parks
    • Tillamook County Hikes
    • Whale Watching
    • Tillamook County Library
    • SOS Community Calendar
  • About
    • Contribute
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Opt-out preferences
  • Post Submission Test
  • Search...
Menu

OREGON DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY FIREFIGHTERS WORK HARD TO PROTECT LIVES AND PREVENT ANOTHER “BLOW UP DAY”

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Editor

TILLAMOOK, Ore—On Aug. 24, 1933, the skies west of Portland were darkened by an enormous smoke column more than 40,000 feet high as a fire that had started in the headwaters of Gales Creek grew into what would become known as the Tillamook Burn. The initial fire that had grown to 40,230 acres over 10 days, suddenly grew an additional 268,800 acres in only 20 hours. Fueled by low humidity and gale force east winds, this rapid expansion became known as “blow up day.”

This devastating event, along with three subsequent fires spaced six years apart, helped raise awareness of wildfire dangers and led to a massive forest restoration effort by many groups of Oregonians, who planted more than 72 million seedlings. Over the following decades, more than a billion seeds were dispersed by helicopters too.

Finally in 1973, both the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests were dedicated by Governor Tom McCall.

Today the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) manages 760,000 acres of state forestlands and provides forest fire protection and suppression on state forestlands and much of Oregon’s private forestland.

“Our goal is to find fires as early as possible and put them out quickly,” said Ron Graham, ODF’s Deputy Chief of Fire Operations. “This year our people and partners are doing an amazing job keeping large fires off the landscape. We always put safety first and so far this fire season, no members of the public have lost their life because of wildfire. We’ve been successful in controlling fires near populated areas that had the potential to destroy many homes. We recognize the hardship some folks face who have lost their houses but there could have been a lot more lost if we didn’t react quickly and get on top of many fires that had the potential to devastate nearby communities.”

To date, ODF has detected and responded to 705 fires limiting the burned areas to 4,757 acres on ODF protected lands that include the state forests.

“We are doing well due to three main factors: our highly professional and dedicated people, close partnerships, and funding for critical firefighting assets and equipment,” said Graham. “Our people are amazing—they are doing dangerous, hard, but important work. They put in 16-hour days and may not see family and friends for weeks. They are truly the heroes of this effort. They are not the only heroes—our federal, state, local and private partners are in this fight with us, and strong relationships help us support each other efficiently, quickly, and effectively to attack these fires.”

The final piece to successful wildland firefighting is having the right tools and equipment.

“State legislators have supported us with absolutely critical firefighting aircraft through the Special Purpose Appropriation (SPA) funded aircraft program,” said Graham. “These aircraft allow ODF to contain fires until firefighters arrive on the ground to suppress the fire.”

Many Oregonians express their support and ask what they can do to support ODF’s and other agencies’ firefighters.

“The best thing they can do is follow all fire restrictions and help prevent wildfires from starting,” said Graham. “Of the 705 fires on ODF protected land, 611 were human caused. The other 94 were started by lightning. Amazingly, more than 86 percent of these fires can be prevented. We ask everyone to follow state and local fire restrictions, and more importantly just care enough about your neighbor and our valuable forests to do the right thing—do your part to prevent wildfires.”

For more information on fire prevention, fire information and Oregon State Forests visit the ODF website.

Featured Video

Slide Contribute SUBSCRIBE

Tillamook Weather

Tides

Tillamook County Pioneer Podcast Series

Tillamook Church Search

Cloverdale Baptist Church
Nestucca Valley Presbyterian
Tillamook Ecumenical Service

Archives

  • Home
  • EULA Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Opt-out preferences
  • Search...
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on pinterest
Pinterest
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
Linkedin
Catherine

Recent Posts

  • Making Waves: Western Oregonians Increasingly Support Marine Reserves

    May 31, 2025
  • ARDENT GOURMET: Don’s Favorite Foods

    May 31, 2025
  • Tillamook Coast Partners with Leave No Trace, Launches Seven Principles for Responsible Travel

    May 31, 2025
©2025 | Theme by SuperbThemes

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}