Fire and Rain: The Environmental History of Western Oregon  Tags: fire_ecology environment willamette_valley western_oregon american_indians climate vegetation forests grasslands  

Fire ecology is concerned with the processes linking fire behavior and ecological effect. Campaigns such as “Smokey Bear” in the USA have molded public opinion to believe that wildfires are always harmful to nature. This view is based on the outdated belief that ecosystems progress toward an equilibrium and that disturbance (such as fire) disrupts the harmony of nature. More recent ecological research has shown, however, that fire is an integral component to the function and biodiversity of many communities, and that the organisms within those communities have adapted to withstand and even exploit it. Fire suppression, in combination with other human-caused environmental changes, has resulted in unforeseen changes to ecosystem dynamics and species composition and has backfired to create some of the largest, most intense wildfires yet. Land managers are faced with tough questions about where it is appropriate to restore a fire regime and how to do it. These questions are crucial today as we see the consequences of years of fire suppression and the continued expansion of people into fire-adapted ecosystems.

Introduction

When early European settlers arrived in Western Oregon, they encountered a landscape quite different from what we see today. Much of the Willamette Valley was an open oak savannah, and the forests were a patchwork of new and old growth, reflecting centuries of intermittent fire. For many early visitors, this was the "natural" landscape - but in fact the native peoples of the area had been "managing" their environment for about 4,000 years, primarily through the use of fire. By using low-intensity spot firing in the Fall, the Kalapuya and other local peoples had learned how to maximise the landscape for the products they needed most - seed, textiles, wapato, and forage for game. In fact, they had maintained the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue Valleys in a truly prehistoric state - since the last great climate change about 4000 years ago, when a wetter climate succeeded a long dry period.

This bibliography captures most of the current research in this field. Many books are available in LCC Library, and others are linked thru to Summit, the Library's regional consortium. These can be ordered by any LCC student or faculty.

Abbott, Carl. "Salmon, Sedentism, and Cultivation: Toward an Environmental Prehistory of the Northwest Coast." Northwest Lands, Northwest Peoples: Readings in Environmental History. Ed. Dale Goble and Paul W. Hirt. Seattle: U of Washington Press, 1999.

Ames, Kenneth M. "American Indians Used Fire to Improve Hunting, Crops." Oregonian 14 Nov. 1991: 3B0.

Atwood, Kay. As Long as the World Goes On: An Environmental History of the Evans Creek Watershed. Medford: Rogue River National Forest, 1995. 180p.

Benner, Patricia, and James Sedell. "Upper Willamette River Landscape: A Historic Perspective." River Quality : Dynamics and Restoration. Ed. Antonius Laenen and David A. Dunnette. Boca Raton: CRC/Lewis, 1997. 23-46.

Berkley, Evelyn L. "Temporal and Spatial Variability of Fire Occurrence in Western Oregon, A.D. 1200 to Present." Diss. U of Oregon, 2000. 110p.

Boag, Peter G. "Valley of the Long Grasses." Environment and Experience: Settlement Culture in Nineteenth-Century Oregon. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1992. 3-27.

Boyd, Robert T. "Strategies of Indian Burning in the Willamette Valley." Canadian Journal of Anthropology 5 (1986): 65-86. Rpt. in Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Ed. Robert Boyd. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 1999. 94-138.

Bunting, Robert. The Pacific Raincoast: Environment and Culture in an American Eden, 1778-1900. Lawrence: UP of Kansas, 1997. 236p.
"This study describes "major environmental changes in the old growth forests and lush grassy valleys from Washington's Puget Sound southward to Oregon's Rogue River country, and from the adaptive Amerind ecology of the late 18th century to the start of large-scale timber industry after 1880. . . . (According to Bunting), native Americans shaped a cultural landscape that, per force, restrained waste of resources and accommodated indigenous flora and fauna. By contrast, Euramericans after 1830 gradually imposed a premeditated but ultimately pretentious Edenic idyll on western Oregon and Washington that replaced native plants and animals with species imported from the Midwest." (Choice)

Dicken, Samuel N. "Oregon Geography Before White Settlement, 1770-1840." The Western Shore: Oregon Country Essays Honoring the American Revolution. Ed. Thomas Vaughan. Portland: Oregon Historical Soc., 1976. 1-27.

Dicken, Samuel N., and Emily F. Dicken. "The Impact of the Indians of Oregon." The Making of Oregon: A Study in Historical Geography. Portland: Oregon Historical Soc., 1979. 35-47.

Freed, Robert A. "Ancient Willamette Valley Actually No Forest Primeval." Oregonian 1 Dec. 1988: 3B.

Gilsen, Leland. "Willamette Valley Pyroculture." CAHO 17.1 (1992): 9-11.

Lang, William L. "Willamette Eden: The Ambiguous Legacy." Northwest Lands, Northwest Peoples: Readings in Environmental History. Ed. Dale Goble and Paul W. Hirt. Seattle: U of Washington Press, 1999.

Habeck, James R. "The Original Vegetation of the Mid-Willamette Valley, Oregon." Northwest Science 35.2 (1961): 66-77.

Impara, Peter C. "Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Fire in the Central Oregon Coast Range." Diss. Oregon State U, 1997. 354p.

Johannessen, Carl L., et al. "The Vegetation of the Willamette Valley." Annals of the Association of American Geography 61 (1971): 286-302.

Knickerbocker, Brad. "Reclaiming the Ancient Lands of the 'Old Ones'." Christian Science Monitor 14 June 1994: 10.
An interview with Takelma elder Agnes Baker-Pilgrim, and an examination of the Takelma Inter-Tribal Project. The Project is part of a new relationship between native peoples in the West and Federal land managers, whereby some of the land use decisions on federal lands are being shared with tribes. In the Rogue Valley, local Indians from a number of tribes are working with the Rogue River National Forest to restore a heavily-logged area below Applegate Dam. After a century of logging and fire suppression, the original open oak savannah has become clogged with brush and debris, and local people are looking to restore both the spiritual and ecological values of the landscape. All over the West, similar consultations and cooperation are underway.

Knox, Margaret A. "Ecological Change in the Willamette Valley at the Time of Euro-American Contact ca. 1800-1850." Diss. U of Oregon, 2000. 95p.

LaLande, Jeffrey M. An Environmental History of the Little Applegate River Watershed: Jackson County, Oregon. Medford: Rogue River National Forest, 1995. 104p.

- - -, and Reg Pullen. "Burning for a 'Fine and Beautiful Open Country': Native Uses of Fire in Southwestern Oregon." Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Ed. Robert Boyd. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 1999. 255-276.

Leopold, Estella B., and Robert Boyd. "An Ecological History of Old Prairie Areas in Southwestern Washington." Indians, Fire and the Land in the Pacific Northwest. Ed. Robert Boyd. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 1999.

Lewis, Henry. "Reconstructing Patterns of Indian Burning in Southwestern Oregon." Living with the Land: The Indians of Southwest Oregon: Proceedings of the 1989 Symposium on the Prehistory of Southwest Oregon. Ed. Nan Hannon and Richard K. Olmo. Medford: Southern Oregon Historical Soc., 1990. 80-84.

Liberman, Kenneth. "The Native Environment: Contemporary Perspectives of Southwestern Oregon's Native Americans." Living with the Land: The Indians of Southwest Oregon: Proceedings of the 1989 Symposium on the Prehistory of Southwest Oregon. Ed. Nan Hannon and Richard K. Olmo. Medford: Southern Oregon Historical Soc., 1990. 85-93.

Man and the Land: Environmental Perspectives of the Native Americans in Early Oregon. Monmouth: Oregon College of Education, 1973. 120p.

McKinley, George, and Doug Frank. Stories on the Land: An Environmental History of the Applegate and Upper Illinois Valleys. Medford: Rogue River National Forest, 1996. 235p.

Morris, William G. "Forest Fires in Western Oregon and Western Washington." Oregon Historical Quarterly 35 (1936): 313-339.

Pearl, Christopher A. "Holocene Environmental History of the Willamette Valley, Oregon: Insights from an 11,000-year Record from Beaver Lake." Diss. U of Oregon, 1999. 150p.

Pendergrass, Kathy L. "Vegetation Composition and Response to Fire of Native Willamette Valley Wetland Prairies." Diss. Oregon State U, 1996. 241p.

Possiel, William J. "Oregon's Early Peoples and Their Relation to the Environment: An Interpretive Approach." Diss. Oregon State U, 1980. 170p.

Pullen, Reginald J. Overview of the Environment of Native Inhabitants of Southwestern Oregon, Late Prehistoric Era. Medford: Rogue River National Forest, 1996. 121p.

Reyes, Chris. The Table Rocks of Jackson County: Islands in the Sky. Ashland: Last Minute Publications, 1994. 143p.

Robbins, William G. "The Native Ecological Context." Landscapes of Promise: The Oregon Story, 1800-1940. Seattle: U of Washington Press, 1997. 23-49.

Teensma, Peter D. "Fire History and Fire Regimes of the Central Western Cascades of Oregon." Diss. U of Oregon,1987. 188p.

Thilenius, John F. "The Quercus Garryana Forests of the Willamette Valley, Oregon." Ecology 49 (1968): 1124-1133.

Towle, Jerry G. "The Changing Geography of Willamette Valley Woodlands." Oregon Historical Quarterly 83 (1982): 67-87.

- - -. "Woodland in the Willamette Valley: An Historical Geography." Diss. U of Oregon, 1974. 159p.

Trefethen, Parker. "Man's Impact on the Columbia River." River Ecology and Man: Proceedings of an International Symposium on River Ecology and the Impact of Man. Ed. Ray T. Oglesby. New York: Academic Press, 1972. 77-98.

Weisberg, Peter J. "Fire History, Fire Regimes, and Development of Forest Structure in the Central Western Oregon Cascades." Diss. Oregon State U, 1998. 256p.

Whitlock, Cathy. "Vegetational and Climatic History of the Pacific Northwest During the Last 20,000 Years: Implications for Understanding Present-day Biodiversity." Northwest Environmental Journal 8 (1992): 5-28.

- - -, and L.D. Grigg. "Late-glacial Climate and Vegetation Changes in Western Oregon." Quaternary Research 49 (1998): 287-298.

- - -, and Margaret A. Knox. "Prehistoric Burning in the Pacific Northwest: Human Versus Climatic Influences." Fire, Native Peoples and the Natural Landscape. Ed. Thomas R. Vale. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002. 195-231.

Williams, Gerald W. "Early Fire Use in Oregon." Fire Management Today 60 (2000): 13-20.