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‘LET THE FIRE FALL’
AN ENCOUNTER
WITH THE EAGLE
CREEK INFERNO
By ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
F
PHOTO BY DAVID LEE MYERS
Robert Michael Pyle
diverted onto little state
Highway 14 in Washington
for more than sixty miles.
The Bridge of the Gods was
closed, and both Cascade
Locks and Multnomah Falls
Lodge were in danger of
incineration.
The drive itself was hell,
all those trucks and bright
lights, speeding and stalled
for mile after mile. All that
diesel exhaust and forest fire
smoke. And who could help
but rubberneck, as the oppo-
site shore erupted in crimson
tides of flame?
Finally getting off at
North Bonneville to soothe
GENNA MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
A wildfire burns on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, near Cascade Locks and the
Bridge of the Gods, in early September.
my nerves and gas up, I
failed at both: The wall of
fire just a mile away across
the river, the hot wind of ash
and cinders and smoke, and
all the buzzed and frightened
people did nothing to steel
my nerves for the next bout
of gridlock and race. And
the gas pumps had been
turned off because of burn-
ing brands flung over the
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river by exploding trees.
Those exploding trees!
I’d read about flare-ups and
blow-ups, when violent
convection turns trees to
tinder and they ignite like
giant matches, sending wild
red flame high into the sky
above … but to see it, in tree
after tree as whole stands
were consumed! Or tall
trunks would blaze like red-
hot rods, streaking the black
slope with pillars of fire.
Standing there, eyes
stinging, mouth forgetting to
close … that’s when I saw
the firefalls. Not one, but
many, along the undulating
face of the steep peaks across
the river, like so many bright
yellow ski jumps and orange
waterslides, but nothing cool
about them.
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
or almost a century,
an event took place in
Yosemite called the
Firefall.
Every evening in sum-
mer, at precisely 9 p.m., one
person down in the valley
called out, “Let the fire fall!”
as another person, way up
on Glacier Point, tipped a
cauldron of hot embers over
the lip of the granite cliff.
The National Park
Service ended the practice
in 1968, arguing it was an
unnatural imposition on the
meadows and the walls. But
the tourists loved how it
resembled a fiery waterfall,
and they missed it.
They should have been
with me in the Columbia
Gorge on Labor Day.
Leaving one evacuation
zone to the north, in this
parched summer of fire and
flood, I drove unwittingly
into an even starker inferno.
Teens tossing firecrack-
ers over a basalt cliff near
Eagle Creek on the Oregon
side had sparked a blaze,
of course. Now Interstate
84 was shut down, all its
east- and westbound traffic
240 11TH STREET
ASTORIA, OR 97103
And here’s another thing:
When I glassed them, I saw
the fire was falling up —
rising against the mountain
face instead of dropping,
ignited by falling embers,
then blown by hot winds
to join the conflagration
above. How one small patch
of smolder, maybe an acre,
grew, grew, then blew up to
cover an entire mountainside
in minutes! That gave me
the hot chills.
Before I left North
Bonneville to reenter the
river of cars and trucks,
a dazed-looking woman
walked past, muttering. “I
can’t stop thinking about
the animals,” she said. “All
those animals …” And
walked on, into the smoke.
Robert Michael Pyle
is a writer, biologist and
long-time resident of Gray’s
River. The most recent of his
twenty books is “Through
a Green Lens: Fifty Years
of Writing for Nature.” He
will be reading from the new,
updated edition of his clas-
sic “Where Bigfoot Walks:
Crossing the Dark Divide”
at KALA Gallery on Friday,
Oct. 20, the 50th anniver-
sary of the famous Patter-
son-Gimlin Bigfoot film.
Live The Quebe
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Sisters
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• Paul Delau and
Barbara Hannah
• Don & Lou Anne Fore
Sunday
Sept. 17 th
2 pm
Three part harmony and
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blend musical genres from
contemporary to country.
In the
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RAYMOND
THEATRE
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or phone (360) 875-5207