The Gales Creek Overlook in the Tillamook State Forest. File photo: Chas Hundley//Gales Creek Journal
The Tillamook State Forest is closed to the public, as are other forestlands protected by the agency in northwest Oregon due to extreme wildfire danger and limited firefighting resources.In an alert issued Wednesday afternoon, the agency said that the order applied to the Tillamook, Clatsop, and Santiam State Forests, as well as scattered tracts of forestland under ODFs purview in Polk, Lincoln and Benton counties. Anyone currently in these areas needs to leave right away, the notice read. The Santiam will remain closed until further notice; other forests may reopen Sunday, September 13 at 11 p.m. We cant really staff anything beyond initial attack with any force, and cant really get any help from the larger system. Just a couple more days everyone, said a joint email from three ODF district foresters tasked with protecting the Tillamook State Forest just before midnight Tuesday.
Cal Mukumoto, the head of the Oregon Department of Forestry announced his resignation in a brief letter Thursday during a Board of Forestry meeting, noting his last day would be Jan. 23. He'll temporarily be replaced by Kate Skinner, Tillamook District Forester.
A proposed toll road linking Forest Grove and Tillamook faced opposition, but Gales Creek residents would take any road they could get, according to a 1925 newspaper article.
"County Jail Filled to Overflow With Arrests Made" including Ernest Narver, Frank Kearns, Thomas Young, and Roy Kearns, all arrested at Balm Grove on liquor possession charges in Prohibition-era Gales Creek.
People are shooting exploding targets and firing hot lead into dry vegetation in the Tillamook Forest with predictable results: Five wildfires since May. These fires are all preventable, said Acting Forest Grove District Forester Stephanie Beall.
