Fire:
Altering the Valley Environment

Most parts of the country burned; only in little patches and on the flats near the low hills that verdure is to be seen.
-- Botanist David Douglas in his journal, 1826

Historian Peter Boag writes that "the Willamette Valley was shaped by the interplay between the Kalapuyan Indians and nature." Kalapuyans deliberately burned grasslands in the late summer and fall to rid the area of shrubs and trees. They created a landscape of open prairie and oak groves which encouraged production of acorns and camas and provided food for game. Hunters also employed fire to trap animals. Long before white settlement, humans altered the valley's landscape.

Fire continues to shape the valley though less thoroughly than in years past.
Here a ranger uses a controlled burn to rid the Dorena dam area of weeds.
Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers