The Price of Reckless Clearing
A brush-clearing fire near Yacolt spiraled into one of the Northwest's most catastrophic blazes, incinerating 23,000 acres and destroying $200,000 in property.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A rancher’s brush fire burning slashings from his ranch in the logged-off land area near Yacolt developed into one of the biggest forest fires in the history of the Northwest. It was in April of a recent year—during a period when most people mistakenly believe that danger of fire is small—but during a moment of relaxed vigilance the fire spread into dried ferns and undergrowth and a conflagration started that burned over 23,000 acres of valuable second growth timber lands and destroyed $200,000 worth of logging properties. One of the greatest needs now is to teach ranchers how to burn brush properly—and safely—and how to set their fires, say forest conservationists. G. C. Joy, of the Washington Forest Fire Association, advises that ranchers should pile small brush on top of stumps and burn them in late fall to avoid the dry-season danger. Broadcasting fires during hot, dry, or windy periods not only risks destruction of property but also depletes the soil, as the valuable wood ash is blown away instead of being soaked into the ground by rain.
“Care in burning brush would prevent such disastrous fires.”
The Yacolt Burn, alluded to here, remains a landmark ecological disaster in Washington history. Modern fire management still struggles with the balance between agricultural land clearing and the extreme volatility of our drying landscape.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.