08/08/2002
The fire was already racing through the dry blackberries and cottonwoods behind Sharen Kasch's home on Willamette Bluff, casting an eerie shadow that flickered across her shed.
Kasch didn't even have time to pull on shoes. She grabbed a backyard hose and sprinted to fend off the flames, cringing as snakes fleeing the heat slithered over her bare feet.
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The Bluff Fire swept across the Willamette Bluff a year ago, leaving behind a moonscape of blackened earth and skeletal trees. Helicopters and 170 firefighters fought the five-alarm fire alongside homeowners such as Kasch, who organized bucket brigades and confronted the fire with garden hoses.
The city is working on a long-term plan to fight fire on the bluff with native plants and with stricter building codes. But the same tangled patches of quick-burning weeds that fueled the bluff fire still exist on a couple hundred acres in Portland, botanic supervisor Andi Curtis said.
The fire turned the purple flowers of Kasch's Butterfly Tree into black sticks and covered her furniture and carpet with ash. Firefighters used so much water on her yard that a lilac bloomed in August, three months late.
All you could see was fire, she said. We couldn't see the river, we couldn't see anything. Just flames. You couldn't get near it. It came so fast, it was just unbelievable.
City Preparing Fire Rules
Fire Marshal Jim Crawford compares Portland wildfires to floods: They seem to run in cycles that nobody can predict. The Willamette Valley is wet enough to avoid the seasonal fires of Central and Southern Oregon. But some years, the moisture drops, the wind picks up, and a spark in the weeds begins to run.
Thousands of Portland residents live in a wildfire hazard zone, Crawford said. Most of the West Hills are at risk of wildfire, along with Rocky and Powell buttes, Mount Scott, Oaks Bottom and the Willamette Bluff.
After the Bluff Fire, city leaders also pledged to pursue land-management rules that would require homeowners to clear away underbrush. Since then, though, they have found that environmental concerns greatly complicate such plans.
Clearing away brush might weaken hillsides and hasten erosion, adding to landslide dangers. It also could worsen pollution and run afoul of endangered-species laws. Homeowners living in environmental zones need a city permit before they can begin cutting trees.
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I'm not particularly pleased about that, he said. But that's the reality of converging interests between the environment and fire management. If it were just a matter of me saying, (Clear) 30 feet,that would be easy.
Native Plantings Slow Fire
The city planted native grasses on the 23 acres of bluff scorched by last summer's fire. Neighbors thought the landscape looked like Ireland this spring, with bright wildflowers scattered through the new green grass.
The planting cost $180,000 and was covered by Union Pacific Railroad, faulted for the train's spark that started the fire.
Blackberries and other non-native weeds had choked the bluff before the fire, growing in dense clusters that would tower over an adult. Those plants, packed with combustible oils and growing close together, fueled the bluff fire, City Forester Brian McNerney said.
The city's Bureau of Environmental Services is preparing a three-year project to plant oak and madron trees and open grassland along the bluff. Part of that plan involves attacking non-native weeds with herbicide to help prevent catastrophic fires, Botanic Supervisor Andi Curtis said.
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But the bluff extends for miles from the project site, from the Willamette River to Canby -- hundreds of hillside acres tangled with blackberry bushes and other noxious weeds. And Curtis estimated that at least 300 acres in Portland, and probably more, have similar clusters of fire-friendly underbrush and weeds.
The city is working to identify those places where the weeds have grown too thick and have pushed out native plants. It also is looking for the money to pay for similar re-planting efforts.
The bluff fire was really a catalyst for a more-intensive management plan, McNerney said. I think there's a greater awareness in the city now. But people need to use common sense and not get overly concerned, have a knee-jerk reaction.
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The amazing part to this is that they seem so calm about having "at least 300 acres in Portland, “and probably more,” have similar clusters of fire-friendly underbrush and weeds." This is FIRE SEASON !!