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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2021
Bend resident shares the
impact of DUII crashes
By KYLE SPURR
The Bulletin
Kristyna Wentz-Graff /Oregon Public Broadcasting
Ralph Bloemers checks a time-lapse camera that is documenting a parcel of woods in Elkhorn
in February.
Cameras capture life
in forests after wildfi re
By CASSANDRA
PROFITA
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Ralph Bloemers was
looking for the right place
to put a wildlife camera in
the burned forest surround-
ing the former mining camp
at Jawbone Flats.
The area is closed to
the public, but the Opal
Creek Ancient Forest Cen-
ter invited Bloemers to doc-
ument wildlife and forest
recovery around its educa-
tional facility after the area
burned in the Beachie Creek
fi re last year.
“Oh, that’s a burned out
structure up here,” Bloemers
said, stopping short before
a pile of twisted metal and
ash. “That’s not doing it for
me.”
He changed direction to
look for game trails nearby.
He stopped again among a
grove of burned trees and
looks up at the blackened
canopy.
“It’s pretty shaded in
here,” he said, unpacking
his camera gear. “It’s going
to take a while for the vege-
tation to come back because
of the light.”
Bloemers, a co-founder
of the nonprofi t Crag Law
Center, has been refi ning his
own art form over the past
few years as an advocate
for natural wildfi re recovery
and fi re-safe communities.
He started setting remote
cameras in burned forests
after the 2017 Eagle Creek
fi re in the Columbia River
Gorge with a goal of chang-
ing how people think about
the eff ects of wildfi re.
“You can show the plants
coming back, and the elk
and the deer and bear and
the cougar and everything
else that loves that highly
burned landscape after it
starts to regrow,” Bloemers
said. “And just by showing
that to people, it’s kind of
undeniable the beauty and
life that can be found there.”
After years of experi-
menting with time lapse and
motion sensors, losing cam-
eras in the snow and fi nd-
ing them knocked down by
bears, Bloemers now has
an impressive sizzle reel of
cougars, bobcats, bears and
majestic elk amid scorched
trees. He also has time lapse
photos of wildfl owers, ferns
and maple trees sprouting
with vibrant colors in black-
ened landscapes.
He’s expanded his opera-
tion, too, so he now has doz-
ens of cameras in burned
forests across Oregon.
He maintains cameras on
Mount Hood, where the Dol-
lar Lake fi re burned in 2011,
in the Santiam Canyon and
Willamette National Forest
where the Beachie Creek
fi re burned last year, and in
the Siskiyou Mountains of
southern Oregon in the foot-
prints of the 2017 Abney
and Burnt Peak fi res and the
2018 Spencer fi re.
“I knew these places
weren’t destroyed despite
what people were say-
ing about them,” Bloemers
said. “I wanted to capture
the wildlife that was there
and the rebirth, the recov-
ery of the natural landscape.
Instead of telling people
that they’re OK, I wanted to
show them.”
Oregon State University
ecosystems ecologist Boone
Kauff man studies the eff ects
of natural disturbances such
as wildfi re, and his research
about the role of wildfi res in
Northwest forests explains a
lot of the images Bloemers
has captured on his cameras.
“Virtually all species,
whether they’re fungus like
mushrooms or plants or
birds, they all have adap-
tations to survive fi re or to
live at some level of the suc-
cession from the fi rst years
following fi re to old growth,
hundreds of years following
fi re,” Kauff man said.
Douglas fi r, for exam-
ple, has a very thick bark
that often protects it from
fi re, he said, and when trees
die in fi res, they feed insects
that woodpeckers love to
eat.
“We see this pretty beau-
tiful cycle of life,” Kauff -
man said. “It may look hor-
rible to us in the fi rst few
months or years after fi re,
but in the long run they’re
providing very integral fea-
tures to the structure, func-
tion and dynamics of these
ecosystems.”
During a fi re, Kauff man
said, most species survive
by running or fl ying away or
hiding under water or soil.
“Even in very, very
severe conditions, just a few
inches of soil will provide
enough insulation for many
species to survive,” he said.
“Usually there is pretty
low mortality of wildlife
during fi res because they’ve
evolved and adapted to fi re
as well.”
Some species even
depend on fi re, Kauff man
added.
“There’s a number of
species that only exist right
after a fi re, that produce
seeds that will lay dormant
in a forest for as long as
250 years,” Kauff man said.
“And it requires fi re, heat
from a fi re, to stimulate ger-
mination of the seed.”
Even the most severe fi res
typically burn less than 10%
of the forest biomass above
ground, his research shows,
and while a fi re might kill
trees it doesn’t burn much
of the wood, which can go
on to store carbon and pro-
vide valuable salmon habi-
tat in streams.
“One of the classic fea-
tures of Pacifi c Northwest
streams is tremendous quan-
tities of large woody debris
in the streams,” he said. “A
lot of the gravels and sands
that ultimately end up in the
rivers and creeks are from
these fi re events, and so
they can be very important
sources of sediment that in
the long run is utilized by
species such as salmon.”
Bloemers said he hopes
people will see the beauty
in his post-wildfi re photog-
raphy and start enjoying
burned forests in new ways.
“I hope they will see it
not as a destroyed thing but
a young thing full of poten-
tial,” Bloemers said. “It’s
like a charcoal forest. It’s
black and gray and brown in
the beginning, but it’s basi-
cally a blank canvas that
nature will start to paint
green, and the wildlife will
come back.”
Jack Beal knows fi rst-
hand the dangers of driving
impaired.
The 71-year-old Bend
resident still can’t believe
he survived a crash 42
years ago, when a drunken
driver in Portland was fl ee-
ing police and crashed into
Beal’s work truck.
“I could’ve died,” said
Beal, who injured his neck
in the crash. “The guy hit
me at 106 mph. The only
thing between me and him
was a door.”
Twenty-six years later,
Beal’s son, Joe, was struck
by a drunken driver on
Deschutes Market Road
north of Bend. The crash
left Beal’s son with two
shattered wrists.
After his son’s crash,
Beal decided to share his
personal
experiences.
He gave talks for police
departments, high schools
in central Oregon and for
the Deschutes County
DUII Victim Impact Panel,
a program required for
those convicted of driv-
ing under the infl uence of
intoxicants.
“I was really proud to do
it,” Beal said. “I was giv-
ing something back to the
community.”
Beal retired from pub-
lic speaking about three
years ago, but recently had
the urge to return. He was
moved by an incident last
month when a 61-year-old
cyclist in Bend was struck
and killed by a suspected
drunken driver.
He asked his wife,
Debbie, if he should start
speaking again, and she
agreed. He’s since been
actively looking for speak-
ing engagements.
“I was talking about it
with my wife and she said,
‘You enjoyed doing it, and
we know it makes a diff er-
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
After hearing about recent
fatal DUII crashes in Bend,
Jack Beal, a 71-year-old
resident, decided to resume
giving public talks about his
family’s experiences with
drunken drivers.
ence, so start looking into
it,’” Beal said.
Beal is returning at a
time when drunken driv-
ing cases continue to rise in
Deschutes County.
According to data from
the Deschutes County Dis-
trict Attorney’s Offi ce,
cases have increased from
1,022 in 2016 to 1,171 in
2019. Cases declined to
745 in 2020, but that may
be due to fewer people
driving during the corona-
virus pandemic and police
departments not empha-
sizing DUII patrols, Dis-
trict Attorney John Hum-
mel said.
“As policing increases,
DUII arrests will increase
even if there are not
more DUII drivers on the
streets,” Hummel said.
“The converse is also true.”
The overall increase in
drunken driving cases is
partly due to the growing
population and tourism in
the area, Hummel said.
“It’s
important
to
remember that Deschutes
County’s population has
increased
signifi cantly
since 2016, and that tour-
ism has increased signifi -
cantly since then,” Hum-
mel said.
Each case could have a
victim that was injured or
killed. That serves as moti-
vation for Beal.
In his talks, Beal dis-
cusses his crash and his
son’s crash and how they
aff ected their family. But
he also discusses his career
working as a driver for
funeral homes across the
state and having to respond
to deadly crashes caused by
impaired drivers.
He ends each talk with a
story about how he had to
transport a 4-year-old girl
who was killed in a crash
with an impaired driver
just east of Bend. It’s a
story that brings the audi-
ence to tears and reminds
them of the consequences,
Beal said.
“They may not have
been paying attention. But
then I ask, ‘Who in this
room wants to kill a 4-year-
old tonight?” Beal said. “I
have their attention.”
Over the years, Beal has
felt the positive eff ect of
his talks. Strangers have
approached him on the
street and expressed how
much he helped them stay
sober.
For Beal, his stories
are not just lessons for
impaired drivers. They are
memories he lives with
every day. Powerful mem-
ories that cut deep.
He will never forget
assessing the scene where
his son’s van was smashed
from a head-on collision.
His son was driving alone
that day, but had three child
car seats in the back for his
children.
Beal noticed the car
seats were ripped out and
laying on the dashboard.
He realized he could have
lost his son and grandchil-
dren that day.
“You don’t forget that,”
Beal said. “It doesn’t go
away.”
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