Eagle Creek Fire, One Year Later: Gorge businesses still feel the burn

Willis and the lodge haven’t been the only ones struggling get back to the place they were before the Eagle Creek Fire. In the months after blaze, business owners on both sides of the Columbia River Gorge began the slow process of putting their lives back together. Now, nearly one year later, some are having more difficulty recovering than others.

“I feel confident we’ll make it through [the year] now, but there was definitely a period of time where I was not sure,” said Tabatha Wiggins, co-owner of Walking Man Brewing in Stevenson.

Wiggins recalled having to close the outdoor beer garden — effectively limiting how many people the brewery could serve — due to smoke and falling ash during the fire.

“I can say that we essentially lost a month of high-season business — which, for a small town like Stevenson, it’s the summertime business that carries us through the wintertime,” she added.

Food, lodging

The Oregon Tourism Commission, also known as Travel Oregon, conducted a study in March on the economic impact of the 2017 wildfire season. One of the study’s findings was that food and beverage services and lodging businesses suffered the greatest losses, losing about $13.9 million and $13.5 million respectively across the state. (In comparison, statewide retail businesses collectively lost $3.9 million.)

Renee Tkach of Friends of the Columbia River Gorge said that the town of Cascade Locks, Ore., was “completely closed down for two weeks” as the fire raged around it.

“There were evacuations and people were not even allowed in the town,” she said.

That put a strain on Thunder Island Brewing Co., whose primary patrons in the weeks during and after the fire were firefighters and U.S. Forest Service personnel. Though Thunder Island seems to have recovered, the brewery is only marginally busier than it was before the fire.

“Historically, we’ve always had about a 20 to 25 percent growth over the previous year,” said Thunder Island co-owner Dave Lipps. “This month, last July, I don’t even think it was a 4 percent growth.”

Still, Thunder Island’s plight pales in comparison to that of Multnomah Falls Lodge, which had to close for three months. When the lodge opened its doors again, Willis had to lay off most of her 100 employees; nearly one year later, they’re back up to 70 employees.

Across the river, Skamania Lodge in Stevenson fared better. The resort suffered almost a million dollars in losses in the months after the fire due to leisure travelers canceling their reservations, according to General Manager Ken Daugherty. Daugherty’s business was able to postpone group meetings or conferences that already had bookings without incurring additional losses.

Daugherty said that things were “pretty well back to normal” by the beginning of the new year, adding “right now it’s pretty much business as usual.”

‘Silver lining’

Daugherty’s successes, especially in contrast with Willis’ struggles, are representative of how Washington and Oregon have weathered the long aftermath of the Eagle Creek Fire. Travel Oregon’s study also found that Oregon lost about $51.5 million in visitor spending due to the wildfires, costing employees and working proprietors $16 million in earnings. Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge region — including parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Hood River and Wasco counties — was one of the areas that was hit the hardest, losing more than $8 million. These losses amounted to 2 percent of the region’s revenues.

But while Oregon is in recovery, the Washington side of the Gorge has seen a surge of visitors.

“As we expected … visitation to the Washington side has definitely spiked,” said Casey Roeder, executive director of the Skamania Chamber of Commerce. “I’ve lived here over 30 years, and I’ve never seen the amount of people at our major trailheads.”

Roeder added that the chamber’s office saw 50 to 75 percent more walk-in visitors in June 2018 than in June 2017, and that breweries on the Washington side like Walking Man “have seen record numbers” of patrons over the last several months.

“It’s actually been a good summer for us,” said Wiggins. “We’re hoping that 2018 will make up for 2017.”

Tkach called the increased turnout to Washington’s hiking trails and restaurants a “silver lining for the Washington side.”

“If those people who are coming here to hike transfer over into money in our local businesses’ pockets, then that’s a real positive,” Roeder agreed.

Lasting damage, ongoing repairs

Only scars of the Eagle Creek Fire remain, but the Columbia River Gorge still has a long way to go before it gets back to the way it was. Hiking trails are still closed and scarred by fire damage, and efforts to restore the trails can inadvertently cause new setbacks.

That happened last month when cleanup crews accidentally triggered a landslide over the Historic Columbia River Highway, Tkach said. Originally supposed to reopen this month, the highway will now likely be closed until next year.

“There are a series of these events that utilize that historic highway section, and they’re being canceled. These are big events that bring in thousands of people,” Tkach said. “They will be canceling, most likely, I’m assuming, their reservations at the hotel. They won’t be there to spend money in the restaurants.”

The highway closure also affects businesses that already operate along its path. Todd Roll, owner of Pedal Bike Tours in Portland, said that he had to come up with a new route for his Columbia River Gorge tour — which constitutes about half of his business — or drop the tour entirely.

“I’d say that we’re running probably about 80 percent of the amount of tours to the Gorge as we were last year,” Roll said. “It’s not catastrophic, but it’s not ideal, either.”

For Willis, the highway closure is just the latest addition to Multnomah Falls Lodge’s woes.

“With the old highway closed and with the limited parking that we have out on the freeway, it’s hard for people to get here,” she said. “And then with that aside, you can’t do all the hiking that you could normally do around here, and our business is dependent on tourism and people hiking in the area. You simply can’t do that right now because of the fire damage.”

In spite of everything, Willis is hopeful that this will one day become a memory, and that business will finally be back to usual.

“We’re coming along, and I think we’re going to be OK,” she said. “But we’re definitely not whole again.”