Historical Marker
The Tillamook Burn
Tillamook County · Oregon
The board names four trees for the new forest; it came up mostly Douglas fir, and a native fungus found it. Swiss needle cast, named for its first description on planted Douglas fir in Switzerland in the 1920s, strips trees of their older needles. Since about 1990 it has run unusually severe in the plantations around Tillamook, and the first aerial survey, in 1994, found the damage concentrated there. Infected stands grow twenty to fifty percent more slowly. Foresters have answered by planting western hemlock and cedar among the firs, closer to the mix the board named.
What the plaque says
The Tillamook Burn Trees on 240,000 acres were killed in 1933 in one of the nation's worst forest fires which started four miles northeast of this point. Later fires extended the burn to 355,000 acres-to more than 13 billion board feet of timber. This area is now being reforested with Douglas fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock. With effective protection a new forest will in a few decades be ready to harvest on "The Tillamook Burn."
Where it stands
45.61988, -123.38168 · Directions
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