Mark Graves/Staff

The Eagle Creek fire is pictured Sept. 2, 2017.

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BY JIM RYAN

The Oregonian/OregonLive

CASCADE LOCKS — The Columbia River Gorge looked straight out of Dante’s Inferno.

Walls of fire, burning in dense timber, swept through the treasured corridor, leaving it blackened and forever changed. Trails were damaged and vast swaths of forest charred. Arid smoke smothered the gorge.

The reaction at the time was swift and dramatic among Oregonians. Anger seethed at the teen whose reckless tossing of a firecracker sparked the nearly 49,000-acre wildfire one year ago Sunday. Many wondered if the gorge, an unparalleled Northwest destination for outdoor recreation, would ever be the same.

Today, a drive along Interstate 84 or a hike along a trail shows swaths of burned forest mixed with living green. Charred snags stand amid vibrant evergreens.

Recovery is well underway — rebirth emerging from the devastation. Sword ferns sprout in the undergrowth. Small wildflowers bloom even as hazards keep many trails off-limits, some perhaps for years.

And a decade from now, experts say, most hikers will find the forest similar to the one they loved before the blaze — but with some significant changes in scenery.

It’s recovering. And it’s every bit as captivating, though quite different from before.

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Tristan Fortsch/KATU-TV via AP

This Sept. 4, 2017, photo provided by KATU-TV shows the wildfire as seen from near Stevenson Wash., across the Columbia River.

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Then

The fire started Sept. 2 along the Eagle Creek Trail, a well-traveled footpath through signature gorge terrain. Two nights later it turned ugly.

Flames swept across the corridor, coloring its southern flank in agonizing shades of yellow and orange. Whipped by winds, the wildfire pushed hard and fast toward Multnomah Falls, about 12 miles west. Firefighters from throughout the country descended on the gorge, also home to the communities of Cascade Locks and Corbett.

While firefighters saved the falls' landmark lodge, the fire eventually burned four homes and prompted hundreds of evacuations and the rescue of 176 hikers.

The fire prompted a full shutdown of Interstate 84 for 10 days and partial closure for 19 days. Trains on the Union Pacific Railroad were stopped for three days, and Columbia River navigation was suspended for two. Smoke clogged Portland skies, and the blaze, for a time, became the top wildfire priority in the U.S.

Difficult terrain and accessibility complicated the monumental task in front of more than 1,000 firefighters assigned to the fire at peak effort. Months would pass before authorities declared the fire contained. A year later, the fire hasn't been declared "out." Managers monitor for possible flare-ups — the last of which was in May — and wait for snow or significant rain, said Rachel Pawlitz, Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area spokeswoman.

Oregonians were quick to declare their wilderness destroyed, and many demanded harsh consequences for the then-15-year-old Vancouver boy suspected of starting the blaze with fireworks.

The teen, who hasn't been publicly identified, later admitted to starting it. He was sentenced in February to five years of probation and 1,920 hours of community service, and later ordered to pay more than $36 million in restitution, though a judge acknowledged he realistically can't pay that back.

"I know a lot of people suffered because of a bad decision that I made," he said in a statement read aloud in court. "I'm sorry to the first responders who risked their lives to put out the fires, I am sorry to the hikers that were trapped, I am sorry to the people who worried about their safety and their homes that day, and for weeks afterwards. I am truly sorry about the loss of nature that occurred because of my careless action."

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Mark Graves/Staff

A year after the nearly 49,000-acre Eagle Creek fire, foliage was visible along the Pacific Crest Trail near Cascade Locks on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018.

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Now

Burnt trees and resurgent underbrush. Standing snags and small wildflowers. Fresh footprints and warning signs.

Hikers today witness those on the Pacific Crest Trail near Cascade Locks. The paradox between burn and rebirth is on full display on the famed footpath best known for its sure-footed through-hikers, who can plod 2,650 miles through California, Oregon and Washington.

Signs of wildfire are everywhere, but so is the greenery that has filled in over the past several months. Purple and yellow wildflowers pop up just off the trail, for example, and foliage sweeps up and down hillsides. Recovery is rampant.

Lisa Ellsworth, an Oregon State University fire and habitat ecologist, said that although damage to local businesses and tourism shouldn’t be understated, she doesn’t have any long-term concerns for the forest.

“From a forest ecology perspective, that fire is pretty beneficial,” she said.

Ellsworth said fires that burn mostly on the forest floor, rather than consuming the bulk of trees, replenish forests and later create a diverse landscape. Such understory fires — the case for most of the Eagle Creek blaze — also protect forests from more severe canopy fires later on by removing burnable material.

Ellsworth challenged people to appreciate the new landscape and recognize the role the fire had in revitalizing the forest.

“This stage is no less natural than the one that it replaced with this fire,” Ellsworth said.

Dangers linger, however.

Ryan Cole, a Mt. Hood National Forest and Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area engineering geologist, said rocky slopes where vegetation burned have become more unstable than before the blaze.

Soil-covered slopes in severely burned areas also pose a concern, but Cole said 2018 was a relatively mild winter that didn’t bring the large debris flows authorities expected. He said a more typical winter — or rain falling on snow in the burned area — could still cause bigger slides.

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Mark Graves/Staff

Aerial photograph taken Oct. 8, 2017, of the Columbia River Gorge. Flight courtesy of Jeff Cullen and Natalia Koneva.

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Ten years

The forest will feel familiar.

Lush, green, moist, shady. A canopy comprising towering evergreens. Trails leading to gushing waterfalls.

Ten years from now, Ellsworth said, the fire scars may go unnoticed to most, unless they know where to look.

Shrubs will have grown back in force, though less densely than before the blaze. Grasses and wildflowers will meet expectations.

The vast majority of the area within the fire perimeter suffered low and moderate burns — or wasn’t burned at all — but 15 percent was severely affected.

Within that 15 percent, the terrain — mostly high-elevation, steeper spots — will tell a different story. The canopy will be gone, Ellsworth said, and dead trees called snags will stand in its place.

Over more decades, she said, blackened bark will flake off, nutrients will bleed back into the soil, and the sun will bleach trunks. Eerie forest stands of white poles will remain — and even those will eventually topple.

A young conifer forest will stand a decade from now, waist- to head-high. Wildflowers, ferns and grasses will abound, and shrubs and hardwoods will grow.

The sweeping gorge views will be different, too.

The ridgelines will be restored to a familiar green, with foliage outshining snags that stand like matchsticks in the burned area’s highest elevations, Ellsworth said.

The takeaway? The gorge landscape is ever-changing, as evidenced by wildfires that burned elsewhere in the gorge this summer and are sure to strike again over the years.

Or, as Ellsworth said, the dynamic environment will keep evolving — shaped by fires as well as the land and water that created it.

— Jim Ryan

jryan@oregonian.com

503-221-8005; @Jimryan015

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Mark Graves/Staff

Click here to view more photos from a late-August hike on the Pacific Crest, Herman Bridge and Herman Creek trails. And click here to read what popular destinations are open in the gorge.

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