New Tillamook Forest Center will tell an amazing story

The "Tillamook Burn" story just burns to be told.

It's an extraordinary tale of a series of devastating forest fires in Oregon, the last of which occurred more than 50 years ago. The story is so dramatic that in 1991 the Oregon Legislature mandated that the story be told.

What blossomed from that is the state-of-the-art Tillamook Forest Center on Highway 6 near the Wilson River, 22 miles east of Tillamook and about an hour's drive from Portland through Forest Grove. The center will be dedicated March 31 and open free to the public beginning April 1. The public grand opening will run through Oregon Arbor Week, ending April 8.

Doug Decker, an Oregon Department of Forestry interpretive program director who has been involved with the center's development from the start, said the Legislature "authorized us to build a museum to tell the story of the Tillamook." Decker noted that the mandate didn't clarify what kind of museum.

The gears began to turn and dreamers in the department of forestry wanted an interpretive center that would help citizens "build a personal connection with the forest."

Decker visited interpretive centers in other parts of the country to try to come up with a scheme that would work for the Tillamook Forest Center. He and his colleagues put together a vision document in 1997 that projected 100,000 visitors annually.

A site was picked that could incorporate and utilize the Smith Homestead day-use area as well as the Jones Creek Campground nearby. The two land parcels have been linked to the new interpretive center structures by a wooden suspension bridge over the Wilson River. The campground, by the way, doesn't open until May.

As a prelude to the forest center construction, since 1997 the state has offered day-trip school programs to the area to help 6,000 to 7,000 Oregon school kids per year develop a positive relationship with the forest. For design of the center, the state hired Miller-Hull Partnership, a Seattle firm known for its emphasis on sustainable building practices.

The Tillamook Burn is the tale of a forest so devastated by fire that people thought the landscape would be forever charred and barren.

Fire tower lookouts first spotted a puff of smoke on a hot afternoon in August 1933 and figured timber workers, who accidentally started the fire in the heavily forested Coast Range, would quickly extinguish the blaze. The flames, however, raced ahead of the men.

JEFF LARSEN / P-I

A worker mounts one of the giant wall-size forest murals in the interpretive center.

Three thousand men eventually were marshaled to battle the stubborn fire, including Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the region. A quarter of a mile away, the temperature rose to 120 degrees because of the fire's intensity. Charred needles from the burning trees fell in the streets of Tillamook 20 miles to the west.

Soon after the blaze started, firefighters were forced to go on the defensive in the freshening wind. The fire, which soon raged out of control, was never contained and finally was doused by seasonal rains early in September.

The descriptions by those who witnessed the fire, probably the worst in recorded Oregon history, tell it all: "Terrible conflagration," "choking heavy smoke," "terrifying," "incomprehensible," and so on.

The fire killed one CCC worker and destroyed 270,000 acres of forest. The loss to the Oregon economy from that one fire was estimated at the time at more than $200 million -- a huge chunk of change, especially during the Depression.

Subsequent fires in later years in the same forest destroyed another 80,000 acres or so and caused another $350 million more in economic losses to the region. Millions of potential board feet of lumber were lost. Most of the fires were started by logging practices at the time.

All the fires combined, about every six years from 1933 through 1951, are collectively known as the "Tillamook Burn." Devastation was so complete that property owners literally were burned out of their holdings and couldn't afford to pay the taxes on the land. The state ended up foreclosing on the property, and the forest was renamed the Tillamook State Forest in 1973.

JEFF LARSEN / P-I

Doug Decker, director of the Oregon Department of Forestry Interpretive Program, sits on a log skid of the 1930s steam donkey at the center.

Today Tillamook State Forest is the largest state-owned forest in Oregon. A huge reforestation effort was authorized by the Legislature in 1949 -- actually before the last, smaller fire in 1951. More than 72 million seedlings were planted over the next 23 years. The reforestation effort -- the world's largest at the time -- was meant to rocket the forest back to its original, harvestable condition.

Only Douglas fir seedlings, historically one of the most dominant tree species in the region, were planted. However, the reforestation project left out any cedar or hemlock seedlings, altering the mix of trees that composed the original forest. Because of the lack of variety, the forest's future economic viability still is in question.

The forest that surrounds the new center is now a sea of green -- the wasteland look of mid last century is gone. Charred stumps are all the fire remnants visible at a few higher elevations. A bald eagle hovered over the center while I was there. During my tour of the facility, I was able to photograph a red-breasted sapsucker pecking away on a pine tree in search of dinner. A great blue heron lifted off from the shore of the Wilson River before I could get a lens on it.

The centerpiece of the facility -- the most prominent feature, anyway -- is the 40-foot-high fire tower near the parking lot. It was built from original 1930s plans and is similar to the tower from which the dreadful 1933 fire was first spotted. The enclosed viewing platform will include interactive exhibits as well as some great panoramas of the center and the two, 40-acre forested parcels that surround it. Like the original fire tower, it's a steep climb up about three flights of stairs.

For interpretive center visitors, the Tillamook Burn story begins with a bang, literally, at the center's high-tech, surround-sound theater. Decker envisioned from the beginning that the forest interpretation had to start with the fire. The walls of the theater are lined with photographic murals of original photographs taken of the desolation after the 1933 fire. The theater screen is supported by original beams from a burned railroad trestle.

The first sound visitors will experience is the sound of a firestorm that builds to a crescendo while small amounts of smoke are emitted into the theater. The screen simultaneously comes alive with spectacular forest fire footage.

The theater is meant to create a mood strong enough and emotionally stirring enough to carry visitors through the other interactive exhibits. That includes a topographic scale map generated by satellite photos of the fire region. Push one of the dated fire buttons, and the area of the forest burned by that particular fire lights up on the map.

Fourteen hundred interpretive historical photographs line the walls, and there are touchable flora and fauna models as well as interactive interpretive games in five thematic zones representing the various fires. The center will have something for everybody, said Decker, and will include an exhibit in which visitors can dress up like homesteaders.

By the way, the 65,000-gallon pond near the entryway, which may look like a fish pond to the layperson, actually serves about five different functions around the center, including servicing a sprinkler system, flushing toilets and as a fire department reservoir. The interpretive center (except the fire tower) and the surrounding forest is all ADA accessible.

A walk in the woods just isn't a walk in the woods anymore. At the Tillamook Forest Center, a walk in the woods is a one-with-nature experience that might not exist were it not for the wrath of the Tillamook Burn.

Lodging is available in Tillamook (Best Western and a Shiloh Inn) and in Forest Grove (Best Western and McMenamins Grand Lodge).

If you go

* Tillamook Forest Center -- 45500 Wilson River Highway (Oregon 6), Tillamook. Hours: May-September open daily, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Admission is free. www.tillamookforest.org

* Tillamook Oregon Chamber -- 3705 U.S. Route 101 North, Tillamook; 503-842-7525; www.tillamookchamber.org.

* Forest Grove Oregon Chamber -- 2417 Pacific Ave., Forest Grove; 503-357-3006; www.fgchamber.org.

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