[jimmymac]

"When the fire ignited about 4 p.m. Saturday a mile up the Eagle Creek Trail from the trailhead, it left more than 150 people stranded."

[Ski]

[treeswarper]

I read it was started by boys shooting off fireworks.

[gb]

Fireworks should be completely illegal off reservations.

[jimmymac]

That's a stupid, criminal shame. For a fire that pops up at 4pm, two miles up the trail, I was thinking a cigarette butt. Fireworks as a cause is just nuts.

[grannyhiker]

That's the first fire, the Indian Creek fire, on upper Eagle Creek, that's thought to be from fireworks. It started July 4, and there are photos of the very early stages on oregonhikers.org. My first thought on this one was cigarette butt. I've seen a lot of smokers on those popular Gorge trails. Of course that's pure speculation. EDIT, later, 9/5--well, I was wrong, both fires from fireworks. I understand the hikers in there are going to be walked past the Indian Creek fire zone and out via Wahtum Lake. There are SAR and USFS folks with them, and supplies were to be dropped in last night. It's gonna be a long hike for the many in flipflops who were playing in Punchbowl Falls! In the meantime, the new fire is reportedly burning towards Cascade Locks. The local media are, of course, sensationalizing all this (great headlines on the evening news), so I'm taking their reports with many grains of salt.

[moonspots]

[grannyhiker]

It appears that Cascade Locks is being evacuated. Ouch.

[AlpineRose]

[AlpineRose]

[gb]

The fire is now 10,000 acres and has spotted across the Columbia into Washington. I-84 is closed.

[treeswarper]

[zephyr]

Wow. This is insane. Per this report in Oregon Live the Eagle Creek Fire started on Saturday from kids throwing fireworks into the forest. Quote: A woman who was hiking in the Columbia River Gorge on Saturday afternoon says she happened across a group of teens who were lighting fireworks and throwing them into Eagle Creek Canyon, igniting the now 10,000-acre Eagle Creek fire. Liz FitzGerald told OPB radio that she is “pretty sure” she heard the teens giggle as one threw fireworks into the bone-dry surroundings and another video-recorded the act. “I saw this kid throw a smoke bomb — just lobbed it and dropped it down into the woods,” FitzGerald told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “… I saw him throw something that was on fire. Then we all looked over the edge and saw smoke. I said, ‘Do you realize how dangerous this is?’” FitzGerald said she was hiking to Punch Bowl Falls to get some relief from the heat when she encountered the teens. But shortly after seeing them, she turned back around and ran to her car – warning other hikers along the way. “It was billowing smoke. I could distinctly smell fire,” she said of the site where the fireworks were thrown. “It smelled like the fire in my fireplace. It was very clear that this was not the smell of a firecracker.” FitzGerald said she found a U.S. Forest Service employee and reported what she saw. Videos posted online by other hikers show police interviewing two boys who appear to be teenagers, near the Eagle Creek Trailhead. The boys – one wearing a tank top and shorts and the other shirtless – are next to a minivan in the parking lot, along with two adults who witnesses thought might have been their parents. Videos and more photos in the article. In this accompanying article Oregonians grieve on social media about the loss of trails and landmarks in the Gorge. Sickening to think it was caused by such idiots. Multnomah Lodge is threatened. ~z

[zephyr]

.

[grannyhiker]

The Multnomah Co. Sheriff is now posting Level 1 evacuation (start packing) of Troutdale east of 257th--only a mile east of my house! However, I'm on the WA coast to escape the smoke, or most of it, and have no intentions of going home! I let friends, family and neighbors know in case the boundary is moved further west. Friends who live in Corbett have already been evacuated (Level 3). Even if they don't arrest those kids (I personally hope they throw the book at them!), they and their parents will be enormously liable to civil suits.