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Waldo Lake
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der along the shore of the lake and
then branch off and head up to
ward smaller lakes and the begin
ning of the Willamette River. The
open terrain contrasts beautiful
views of healthy forest on lake is
lands and other shores, with
blackened stick-figure-like snags
on sandy soils along the burned
side of the lake.
Four years after the fire, the ter
rain remains a powerful reminder
of the forest blaze that reduced the
popular area to an ashed-out shad
ow of what it once was. Only grass
has successfully reinhabited the
burned area, along with scattered
attempts from trees to regenerate
the forest that once housed a com
plex, high-elevation ecosystem.
The 1996 Charleton Butte fire,
which was caused by a series of
lightning storms, smoked off
10,400 acres of the Willamette Na
tional Forest, including roughly
one-third of the Waldo Lake
Wilderness, according to Diana
Enright with the Oregon Depart
ment of Forestry.
Parts of the fire were heavily
suppressed because the Forest
Service was concerned about in
habited areas to the north and east
of Waldo Lake, Dale Gardner said.
Gardner is the fire management of
ficer with the Middle Fork Ranger
District in Oakridge.
“This was a high-intensity,
high-temperature crown fire,” he
said.
Although the fire was classified
as a total mortality, it spared a few
trees, which has led to some natu
ral reseeding, Gardner said.
“Because the Waldo Lake area is
a designated wilderness, refor
estation will be natural and grad
ual because there will be no re
seeding or human manipulation
of the ecosystem, ” Enright said.
The fire left little on the forest
floor to help reseeding, Gardner
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said. The stand in the Waldo Lake
area, which consisted mostly of
lodgepole pine, mountain hem
lock and true firs, is battling sev
eral climatic and stand-specific
problems, along with the effects of
the fire.
While lodgepole pines are
serotinous — meaning they need
the heat from fires to release seeds
from their cones — fires are ex
tremely destructive to true firs and
mountain hemlocks that release
seeds every year. Also, these trees
grow slowly and take a long time
to regenerate after a fire.
According to Stephen Arno’s
book “Northwest Trees,” the firs
Because the Waldo
Lake area is a designated
wilderness, reforestation
will be natural and grad
ual...
Diana Enright
Oregon Department
or Forestry
will be late to come in after a fire
because they like to grow in a
shade that is not abundant after a
total fire. Hemlocks grow in the
shade beneath the parent tree,
which shelters the seedling from
the harsh elements of this glacial
moraine climate and the direct
sunlight that is plentiful after fires.
The increased visibility and sun
exposure following the Waldo fire
also had the Forest Service wor
ried about the health of the popu
lar fish-bearing lakes in the
burned area, Gardner said. When
the forest disappears, more sun
light reaches the water surfaces.
This can raise the temperature in
the lakes and rivers to where fish
cannot adapt to their new environ
ment and therefore die.
“It’s a much different experi
ence Inow], but the fish are still
How to get to
Waldo Lake
Take Highway 58 east. A few miles
east of Oakridge, turn left at a sign
for Waldo Lake. Follow this road to
a sign for north end campgrounds
and turn left. Park at the marina
parking lot at the end of the road.
The trail to Rigdon Lakes goes
along the north shore area before
branching off from the shore and
into the woods toward the Rigdon
Lakes. The round trip mileage
from the parking area to the lakes
amounts to about 8 miles, but the
trail system leaves plenty opportu
nity for alternative hikes.
doing OK,” he said.
Fires caused by lightening are a
natural occurrence and a part of a
healthy forest ecosystem, Gardner
said. The Taylor Burn, a large nat
ural fire in the early 1900s, de
stroyed much of the same area.
This is a reminder that fires occur
naturally, and in fairly set cycles,
and any forest has a natural fire cy
cle. The interval between fires de
pends on the climate, species
composition of the ecosystem and
geographic location of that forest,
Gardner said.
However natural, the elevation
at Waldo Lake — ranging from
5,000 to more than 7,000 feet —
provides for a fairly short annual
growing season, Gardner said.
This means that regeneration will
progress at a slower rate than it
would at lower elevations.
Although Gardner said rangers
do not engage in prevention of nat
ural fires, the wide variety in fire
safety skills among area users
forces the Forest Service to patrol
the trails and heavily used areas
around Waldo Lake.
“Rangers do spend time on the
trails and sometimes find it neces
sary to engage in discussions
about human-caused fires,” he
said.
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