The Yacolt Burn was the result of many weather factors as well as careless humans. The summer of 1902 had been drier than normal and early September winds blowing from west to east. A build-up of slash from loggers had not been burned off properly in the preceding two summers. On September 8 a fire was started by boys trying to burn a nest of hornets near Eagle Creek, Oregon. Other large fires there occurred independently or combined with other fires started soon thereafter, including one started by a locomotive in Dodson, Oregon. Other accounts cite lightning as the genesis of the fire as well as careless campers and berry pickers, hunters, and loggers cutting slash. The fire spread rapidly, extending from Bridal Veil, Oregon to Cascade Locks, Oregon before burning debris carried across the Columbia River to Washington. It traveled in 36 hours and destroyed 238,920 acres of timber, about 12 billion board feet , in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties.
Extent of damage
Although the fire's namesake is for the town of Yacolt, Washington, that town did not burn in the fires. The loss of all property was assessed at a 1902 value of US$12,767,100. The property damage in Multnomah County, Oregon was estimated at more than one million dollars. The fire dropped one-half inch of ash in Portland, Oregon. The smoke was so thick that street lights glowed at noon in Seattle 160 miles away and ships on the Columbia River were forced to navigate only by compass. Yacolt, Washington was approached by the inferno close enough to blister paint on the town's 15 buildings, but the wind changed, causing the fire to veer north toward the Lewis River, where it burned itself out. At this point an estimated total of 500,000 acres of forest burned in the fire. The timber industry on the Columbia River garnered 13,590,599 board feet of shipments in October, 1902, setting a new record for production in a single month.
Legislation: Yacolt Burn Rules
Immediate calls for legislation were put into action in Oregon and Washington in order to prevent fires of this scale from breaking out again. Some bills were passed into law, but they were not effective measures. In 1929, the Dole Valley fire destroyed another of timber, and in September 2017 the Eagle Creek Fire burned nearly in the Columbia River Gorge. The propensity for the forested uplands in this area to be repeatedly burned is due to the presence of the Columbia River Gorge, which slices through the Cascade Mountains at nearly sea level and makes the climate of the Portland Metropolitan Area relatively immoderate compared to that of Seattle. The area's wet winters cause rapid growth of lush timber, but this is followed by the intrusion of hot, dry weatherin the summer from the arid Cascade Mountainrainshadow. As a result, all logging and other commercial activity in the area is regulated by very restrictive "Yacolt Burn Rules."
