Огненные беды spared древние наскальные рисунки в долине реки Литл-Спокан, но восстановление парка займет годы

Indian Painted Rocks along Little Spokane River spared in Spokane Complex fires, but recovery of natural area to take years Lush wetlands, bright blossoms and prolific wildlife have drawn Inland Northwest residents to the Little Spokane River Valley for generations. Early settlers laid claim to the fertile grounds as Spokane came to fruition, and hired legendary local architects including Kirkland Cutter to design their now historic landmark residences. For centuries prior, the valley sustained Indigenous peoples like the Spokane Tribe who fished its waters and left permanent markings in the form of more than 250-year-old rock paintings. Nowadays, the natural areas part of Riverside State Park attract paddle boarders, hikers and birders in droves. It will be some time until the Little Spokane River Valley resembles itself again. The area was burned by the Autumn Lane fire, one of the three major fires in the Spokane Complex, which has blackened around 9,000 acres and changed the landscape and community for years to come. Riverside State Park spokesman Rex Schultz said much of the north end of the park’s land along the Little Spokane burned. It’s an area touched by wildfire before, but not to this extent. “There was just a lot of grass and brush,” Schulz said. A drive down Rutter Parkway provides a stark view of the fire’s destruction. West and north of the winding road lies scorched land with little to no ground cover, while historic farms and residences lie tucked amongst tall cottonwoods and wetland reeds to the east and south. Unchanged, and relatively untouched by the blazes, are the pictographs left behind by an Indigenous person or persons centuries ago. The surrounding landscape is covered in ash several inches deep, while the trees still standing show burn scars. Still, the Indian Painted Rocks at the Little Spokane River Natural Area remained visible as wildland firefighters were extinguishing hot spots in the area Monday. “I was a little nervous about it because there was some brush close to it,” Schulz said. Warren Seyler, a local historian and Spokane Tribal member, said not much is known about the paintings or their creator. The images imbued in the rockface with crushed red rock and animal fats are spread across two groups in a 6-foot-square area on a 25-foot-tall rock. They can be hard to decipher. A task made more difficult by rains that have eroded the paintings in recent decades. Seyler said it’s believed the images were created by a member or members of the Spokane Tribe and might be depictions of hunting, records of inter-tribal gatherings or spiritual and religious iconography. As a historian, he likes to put himself in the shoes of the creator, and wonder what they were trying to communicate all those years ago. “What a lot of people don’t realize, a lot of those painting sites like that, at times they would paint over the top of them,” Seyler said. “And so you might have multicentury paintings on the same rocks.” Rutter Parkway along the river likely prevented fire from spreading further, said longtime local resident Ty Brown. Brown’s home was on the border of evacuation zones for all three fires for days after the fires. “We were fortunate we didn’t have to evacuate, but you couldn’t sleep because you didn’t know. You want to make sure you heard an alert or something because it moves so fast,” Brown said. “I mean, it was just a scary, scary situation.” Brown is a teacher at West Valley School District, but his passion project for more than a decade has been researching the history of the valley he now lives in with his wife and daughter. He published his findings in his book, “Along the Little Spokane River: A Sense of Place.” While Brown is grateful most historical landmarks survived, including the settler properties and painted rocks, his thoughts at this time are with his neighbors who lost their homes. “That’s first and foremost,” Brown said. “I know everything’s going to rebirth and regrow in the natural areas.” Dave Cass, a forester for Washington State Parks, was among crews working throughout Riverside State Park early this week. They’re removing trees and wildfire debris that poses a risk to visitors, including near the Knothead Loop and Painted Rocks trailheads. Cass said as a forester, arborist and tree-risk program manager, he approaches wildfire affected lands with a discerning eye for hazards first. Anything that threatens park infrastructure and safety has to go before the teams take their next steps, he said. The “afterlife” of the land is what Cass looks to next. He considers the environmental impacts of a fire, what rebounding forest health will look like, how to mitigate risks of a reburn and how to prevent insects, pathogens and weeds from moving in. The Little Spokane River Natural Area is considered an environmentally sensitive area. Recovery will take years, Cass said. “There’s a lot of management to do after a fire to try to prevent other bad things from happening,” Cass said. “What I heard from the park staff was 1,600 acres of the park, that’s 15% of the park burned. That’s quite a lot of land to restore and recover.” Brown said he’s anxious to return to the area and see how the sites he’s spent a decade researching fared. Just recently, he was exploring an old granite quarry on private land that he’s relatively certain was in the middle of the fire footprint. The silver lining is that most of the valley’s tangible history remains, he said. “The structures and the pain of the families and stuff that was lost,” Brown said, “that’s the hard part to come back from.”