Tillamook Burn: Legacy of Fire
Presented by Doug Decker
The Tillamook Burn was a series of four devastating
wildfires that swept the Oregon Coast Range at six year intervals in the 1930s
and 1940s, leaving a 500-square mile swath of burned trees and charred slopes.
Come witness how these fires and other past events have shaped the landscape of
today’s Tillamook State Forest and how the forest has in turn shaped
generations of Oregonians, many who remember the Tillamook simply as “The
Burn.”
Using writings, oral history interviews, photographs, maps
and stories from those who have known and shaped the forest over many years,
forest historian Doug Decker will portray the dramatic changes of the 20th
Century and sketch how that legacy continues to influence the future.
About the Speaker:
Doug Decker retired in 2016
as Oregon’s State Forester. He was Project Leader for the Tillamook Forest
Center, a museum that opened in 2006 to tell the story of The Burn and forest.
Doug has been a student of the Tillamook Burn for 30 years and has a special
interest in examining forest history for clues to the past, present and future.
He currently chairs the Forest History Society based at Duke University, and
runs a blog devoted to old houses and the history of Northeast Portland (www.alamedahistory.org).