Overview
There were four wildfires in this series. The first was started in the Gales Creek Canyon on August 14, 1933 when a steel cable dragging a fallen Douglas fir rubbed against the dry bark of a wind-fallen snag. The snag burst into flame, and the wildfire that grew out of this burned 311,000 acres (1259 km²) before it was extinguished by seasonal rains on September 5. 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 loss in processed lumber was estimated to have been $442.4 million in contemporary (1933) dollars—a serious loss not only to the timber industry at the time, but also to a nation struggling with the Great Depression. Salvage operations were immediately begun to harvest usable portions of the burned wilderness. A Civilian Conservation Corps member was the only known human casualty of fighting the fire.
The speed with which a forest fire can spread in heavy fuels under the most hazardous conditions is well illustrated by this fire. From August 14th at 1:00 p.m. until the early morning of August 24th the fire had burned about 63 square miles and it appeared that it might be brought under control soon. Thus, for over 10 days it had burned at an average rate of about 6 square miles a day. On the 24th, the humidity dropped rapidly to 26 per cent and hot gale-force winds from the east sprang up. During the next 20 hours of August 24th and 25th the fire burned over an additional 420 square miles, or at a rate of 21 square miles per hour along a 15-mile front. The fire was stopped only by the fact that the wind ceased and a thick, wet blanket of fog drifted in from the ocean.
The second fire was started in 1939, allegedly by another logging operation. It burned 190,000 acres (770 km2) before being extinguished, and was contained within the bounds of the earlier fire.
A third fire started on the morning of July 9, 1945 near the Salmonberry River, and was joined two days later by a second blaze on the Wilson River, started by a discarded cigarette. This fire burned 180,000 acres (730 km²) before it was put out. 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, 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, Oregon and the recreational destinations of the Ocean beaches. This devastation remained visible to any traveller through the area as late as the mid-1970s.
The last fire started in 1951, and burned only 32,700 acres (130 km²). It was also confined within the burned-over area.
Read more about this topic: Tillamook Burn