After days of tremendous firefighting effort, a team of tall-tree climbers finally extinguished the fire burning inside the historic Doerner Fir tree in the Southern Oregon Coast Range.
The tree is estimated to be roughly 450 years old and was the tallest Douglas fir in the world at 327 feet before the blaze.
Volunteer tree climbers Damien Carré and Logan Collier scaled the tree Thursday afternoon and used a hose to put out the last of the flames burning inside the tree. Then, they helped set up a sprinkler system to prevent the fire from reigniting.
“I’m still kind of zinging from the whole thing,” said Carré, who is the owner/operator of Oregon Tree Service in Oregon City. “I feel it was very successful, and I’m very proud and honored to be able to do it.”
When Carré got a call on Wednesday asking for his help, he said, “I just kind of jumped on it and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll drop everything and come down and try to save this beautiful tree.’”
Carré said he’s climbed more than a thousand big trees like this one, “but I’ve never had to haul a fire hose on top of one.”
The old growth tree is still alive, but it likely lost about 50 feet of height in the fire, according to federal officials.
Tall-tree climber Brian French, who climbed the tree to measure it in 2008, has already identified trees in Oregon that are 300 feet tall, so the Doerner Fir (previously known as the Brummit Fir) is no longer the tallest tree in Oregon.
The tree started burning on Saturday. Officials are still investigating how it started. They have ruled out lightning as the cause based on weather data.
Carré and French said the massive push to save this tree was awesome, with dozens of firefighters and support crews from federal, state and local agencies all on the scene.
The Coos Fire Protective Association and the Bureau of Land Management led the firefighting efforts, which initially included helicopters dropping water on the tree, sprinkler systems for the surrounding area, fire lines and drone flights to check for hot spots with infrared technology.
“The community and the resources behind this for a single burning tree is quite unprecedented,” French said. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”
Natalie Weber, public information officer for the incident, said additional firefighting resources were deployed because of the tree’s unique status.
“It’s a special tree to a lot of people, so the decisions that have been made as far as putting the fire out have been carefully made with a lot of input,” she said. “Not only does the tree have historical significance, but a lot of people love and appreciate it.”
By Wednesday, the helicopters and sprinklers had failed to put out the fire, which was still burning inside the tree more than 200 feet up the trunk, Weber said, so they called in some arborists.
On Thursday, the tree-climbers cleared away some of the burned trunk to access the fire, and fire crews supplied the climbers with a hose to send water into the tree where the fire was burning.
“They were able to wet it down to the point where they didn’t feel any heat,” Weber said. “As a precaution we also had them install a sprinkler system up there. It covers that whole area that was burned.”
Weber said firefighters will remain on the scene to make sure the fire doesn’t reignite. Officials will conduct additional drone flights to search for heat with infrared technology, and they are keeping firefighting resources ready to respond if the fire flares up again in the warm weather expected over the next few days.
“We do see that sometimes when it gets hot and windy things that are hot catch fire again,” Weber said.
French has had a special relationship with the Doerner Fir and a fascination with tall trees in general. He and his climbing partner Will Koomjian started the nonprofit Ascending the Giants in 2007 to seek out, measure and document Oregon’s tallest trees.
“Oregon Field Guide” filmed him and his crew in 2017, as they climbed some of Oregon’s tallest trees and measured them.
“When I heard the tree was on fire and that arson was a possible cause, it was gut-wrenching,” he said.
French said he got a call on Wednesday asking him if he would climb the tree and cut off the top section that was burning as a firefighting strategy. He shuddered at the thought and declined the request.
“The tree is important because of its story. It got to be this amazing tree all on its own. Unnatural intervention changes that story,” French said.
The Doerner Fir is a Douglas fir tree, and the species is known to live up to 800 years. According to French, even with a damaged top, the tree could still have a lot of life left in it and may even sprout a new crown.
“It’s amazing to see so many people coming together to help this tree, but I also knew that … the top has been in decline for a long time,” he said. “It’s only been a matter of time for that part of the tree to topple and lose its height anyway.”
French said he is planning to return to the area this fall to see if perhaps Oregon has a new champion tree that is now taller than the Doerner Fir.
But even if he and his team find a taller tree, French said, the Doerner Fir will always be distinguished.
“One of the great things this tree does is giving us an opportunity for awe,” he said. “It naturally became what it is and represents history and immense natural power. It towers above the rest of the forest and when you see this tree you feel that.”