PLSO The Oregon Surveyor Nov/Dec 2018

25 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Figure 4: GLO plat showing a portion of T4N R4E surveyed in 1897-1899. summer and considered a sign of “prog- ress” at the time, would eventually lead to the series of fires that would plague the valley for the next 70 years. Consid- er the following timeline of events in and around Section 30: John Trutch surveyed the east line of T4N, R3E and established the NE corner of Sec- tion 25 on June 24, 1857, only 4 days after setting the township corner, discussed earlier. He set a wood post, appropriate- ly marked, referenced by 3 vine maple s and a 40” Fir BT. 31 years later, a Vancouver newspaper article dated September 17, 1888 reports “A terrific forest fire swept toward Yacolt Prairie on the wings of a strong east wind: When discovered, the fire was coming down the Rock Creek country through the old burn. Huge stubs were falling in all directions and soon Bell Mountain was a roaring mass of flames. In 1897 and 1898, Charles Homan, also mentioned earlier, subdivided T4N, R4E and ran a true line West from the NE cor- ner of Section 30 and intersected the 1857 range line about 300 feet south of Trutch’s NE corner of Section 25. (see Figure 3 and Figure 4) On June 23, 1898, Homan sets a wood post for the closing corner and marks two BTs as follows: “A fir stub 60 ins diam brs (bears)sic N 12° 45’ E 130 links dist marked T4N R4E S19 BT” and “A fir stub 50 ins diam brs S 12° 30’ E 114 links dist marked T4N R4E S30 BT” In the notes establishing the closing cor- ner for Sections 30 and 31, Homan also states. “The old corner of sections 19, 24, 25, and 30, which was a post has been de- stroyed by fire and the witness trees have been burned down, but the stumps of the trees, described as bearing trees, still re- main and correspond with the bearings and distances given in the field notes of the survey of the East boundary of Town- ship 4N R3E. I reestablish this cor(ner)sic at same point as follows: “Set a fir post 3 feet long 4” square…marked…fromwhich A dead fir 40” diam brs S 13° 30’ W 155 links dist marked T4N R3E S 25 BT” and A dead fir 40” diam brs N 55° W 91 links dist marked T4N R3E S 24 BT” It wouldonly be 4 years later that the Yacolt Burn of 1902 would leave its everlasting mark on the land and the memories of those who witnessed it. Estimates of lives lost range from 38 to 57. In August of 1910, a forest fire raged about two miles southeast of Yacolt. One fire started in Dole Valley and raced up over Bell Mountain to be met later by a series of fires that the log-train locomotive of the Northern Pacific had started. On July 2, 1922, the Vancouver newspaper reported “For the fifth time, a re-burn has been re-kindled in the 1902 Yacolt Burn. The fire destroyed 5760 acres of regrowth”. September 6, 1929; “The largest fire since the 1902burnhas blackened227,520 acres in Clark and Skamania counties.” The fire lasted for amonth and extended to points near Amboy, Yacolt, Venersborg, Skama- nia, and Stevenson. The fire burned in a small way in the Dole region for twoweeks or more prior to its report on September 6. Many separate blazes were involved, and they gradually merged as they swept over the area. At the time, Pete Paladeni, local resident and mentor of mine when I first came to the Honor Camp and later, a good client and friend, was a lad of 14. He related the terror of that evening in mid-September tome. His father, Mike Pal- adeni and his wife and children had lived on their farm in the north half of Section 19, just above section 30, since the early 1920s. With the help of the whole family plus some men from Yacolt, they man- aged to save the house and barn, which was their only livelihood. 1946: OnMay 2, “Fire broke out in the Dole area at about 5 a.m. and raced westward across Bell Mountain in an approximate- ly 3-mile-wide swath in May.” 1949; “In April, fire on the west side of Bell’s Mountain burnedmore than a thou- sand acres of brush, snags, and replants.” As I ascended that 70% slope on the west side of Rock Creek by myself in the late spring of 1973, I couldn’t help but wonder if any evidence of either Trutch’s or Ho- man’s corners would be left after such a parade of destruction had ravaged that steep east slope of Bell Mountain over the preceding 115 years. I had found that when looking for BTs, it helps to calculate the bearings and distances between them beforehand. When you finally get in the “probable corner area,” one locates a snag, stump, or uproot of the appropriate spe- cies and size and then sets the bearing to the other BT, as previously calculated, in your compass. In this case, there were only 2 BTs for the NW corner of section 30. The resultant bearing and distance tree to tree is N 1-½° E, 157 ft. (It is nota- ble that Homan calls each of these BTs a Featured Article