'Giggling Kids With Fireworks' Responsible For Eagle Creek Fire, Witness Says

CASCADE LOCKS, OR — The Eagle Creek Fire was started by a group of giggling young people playing with firecrackers, according to OPB reporters Anna Griffin and Conrad Wilson, who reportedly spoke with a woman who witnessed the fireworks being tossed into the Eagle Creek Canyon prior to the fire beginning Saturday.

Portland resident Liz Fitzgerald was hiking to Punch Bowl Falls on the afternoon of Sept. 2 when she caught the group of youngsters in the act, OPB reported.

"I saw this kid throw a smoke bomb — just lobbed it and dropped it down into the woods," Fitzgerald told OPB. "I said, 'Do you realize how dangerous this is?'"

Fitzgerald later met another pair of hikers who also witnessed something similar, prompting her to head back to her car to leave the area, OPB reported, noting that as Fitzgerald passed the place where she'd first seen the fireworks, smoke was already starting to accumulate.

"It was billowing smoke. I could distinctly smell fire," she told OPB. "It smelled like the fire in my fireplace. It was very clear that this was not the smell of a firecracker."

Back where she parked her car, Fitzgerald caught up with a U.S. Forest Service officer and was able to direct him to the fire starters, OPB reported.

OPB confirmed that Oregon State Police also interviewed Fitzgerald and that Hood River County officials believe one suspect is a juvenile. Witnesses reportedly told OPB reporters that sheriff's deputies detained two young men after the fire began.

"Even though that kid threw the firecracker, all of those kids he was with are complicit. All of them watched, all of them did nothing. They all were a part of it. One filmed it," Fitzgerald told OPB. "When I came upon them, and the guy threw the firecracker, I'm pretty sure I heard a couple of them giggle. The guy was filming it like it was another thing to film, no big deal. The whole complacency of that group, I find it so disturbing."

The Eagle Creek Fire was first reported around 4 p.m. Saturday. Since then, the fire has grown to 10,000 acres and doesn't show any signs of stopping at this point.

Roughly 400 residences in the Columbia River Gorge and in the Cascade Locks have been evacuated, and the evacuation area has also grown to now encompass parts of east Troutdale.

Monday night, the fire reportedly jumped the Columbia River and started another 25-acre fire on Archer Mountain in Washington.

Click here for more on the Eagle Creek Fire from Patch, including current evacuation information.