Clark Fire 2003 Fall Creek, Oregon

Clark Fire Background (USFS EIA)

The Clark Fire burned an area of about 5,000 acres, including about 3 miles along the river corridor of the Fall Creek Special Interest Area and the Bedrock/Slick Creek drainages of the Late Successional Reserve. The 3,300 acre Fall Creek Special Interest Area is a popular recreation use area. The characteristics that draw the public to visit this area are the campgrounds and trail network set in an old- growth forest setting along the scenic Fall Creek with its numerous pools attractive for fishing and swimming. The fire destroyed the Johnny Creek Nature Trail, which was located in the Johnny Creek Old-Growth Grove. The fire burned through the Bedrock Campground and portions of Fall Creek National Recreation Trail, Clark Butte Trail, Jones Trail and numerous dispersed campsites. Over 90 percent of the fire area is in the Late Successional Reserve. The 66,000 acre Late Successional Reserve covers the upper 2/3 of the Fall Creek watershed. The Late Successional Reserves were designed to maintain and enhance late successional forest as a network of forest reserves throughout the Pacific Northwest Region and to provide habitat for populations of species associated with old-growth forest ecosystems.

Aerial photographs taken of the fire area in the fall 2003 were used to determine fire intensity based on crown mortality. About 1,746 acres (35%) of the Clark Fire were in the high to severe categories, resulting in a fire intensity enough to kill a majority (>60%) of the trees. The areas affected by these high to severe fire intensities include the Johnny Creek Nature Trail area, the riparian area along Fall Creek up to Bedrock Campground, and the mid-to-upper slopes of the Slick and Bedrock drainages. The high intensity burn covers most of the broad central portions of the Special Interest Area. Areas around the perimeter of the Special Interest Area experienced more mixed intensities.

The fire area was forested with mixed conifer stands comprised of Douglas-fir overstories with western hemlock and western red cedar as co-dominant and in the understory. The age classes of the stands are 100-150 years with a scattered over-story of old-growth trees approximately 250-400 years old. Common associates include incense cedar, grand fir, Pacific yew, sugar pine and western white pine. Hardwood species includes bigleaf maple, red alder, vine maple, Oregon white oak, cottonwood, mountain ash, chinquapin, and madrone. The shrub layer includes: Dwarf Oregon grape, salal, rhododendron, red huckleberry, dogwood, hazelnut, and ninebark. Herb layers consist of a variety of moist-site indicating species including Oregon oxalis, coolwort foamflower, inside-out-flower, vanilla leaf, sword fern, twinflower, and redwood violet.

The fire burned about 4,526 acres of native forest and about 447 acres in young plantations. The predominate vegetation management objectives for the fire area, in both the Late Successional Reserve and the Special Interest Area, is to maintain or enhance the late-successional and old-growth forest conditions. Since the fire has destroyed these conditions, the recovery and restoration of these conditions is appropriate. The young plantations were generally scattered around the perimeter of the fire. Depending on the management area, the plantations were either being managed for timber production or for late successional forest conditions. Other past vegetation management activities, which has occurred within the Fall Creek Special Interest Area corridor, includes hazard tree management and noxious weed control.