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On Sept. 2, the Columbia River Gorge caught fire after a Vancouver, Wash., teenager tossed fireworks off a cliff along Eagle Creek ("Anatomy of an Inferno," WW, Sept. 6, 2017). Readers were incensed.
Read Willamette Week's Eagle Creek Fire coverage here.
Krissy May, via Twitter: "I could care less that he is 15. Stop calling him a kid who made a 'mistake.' He is now an arsonist. Call him what he is."
Rob, via wweek.com: "Those kids need to put some gear on and join the crews that are fighting the fire. They'll have a whole new appreciation for what it takes to contain a fire and will hopefully be the voice of reason for their friends in the future."
Michelle Nijhuis, in The New Yorker: "Social media has since lit up with fury at the bomb-thrower, but FitzGerald points out that the entire group of teen-agers—and a number of passing adults—watched his actions and did nothing. 'Everyone wants to just nail this kid, but so many people saw this crazy behavior,' she said. 'They were all complicit.' Five days later, the smoke has settled in—a stinking, gritty reminder that the rest of us are complicit, too."
Amy Hearn, via wweek.com: "I want them to see and smell the corpses of the animals, see the people they've killed with their cruel mindless stupidity. I want them barfing and weeping and know what they've really done. That is consequences."
Marilyn Hudson-Tremayne, via wweek.com: "Look at this devastation. One of the most beautiful spots on earth. They deserve a lifetime of consequences."
Jesse Morris, via Facebook: "I'm all for a punishment for these kids—they broke the law, destroyed thousands of acres of beautiful forest, put people's lives in jeopardy, etc.,…but to say that the death sentence should be considered? That's extremism."
Gerard Biggs, via Facebook: "This comment section is proof that there is no need to release the name."
Cheryl Strayed, via Instagram: "I need to think a good while about what the loss of those trees means to me and to us—us in the Portland area, us in the Pacific Northwest, us in the United States, us in the world. It means something, but it's too fresh for me to express yet what it is. I can't spin it into metaphor or meaning; can't claim that it's anything but what it feels to me to be right now: a tremendous loss, wrapped around the realization that I was wrong. We won't always have this."
Corrections
Due to an editor's error, a story about Elevate Inclusive Fund ("Elevated," WW, Aug. 30, 2017) misstated the amount of private capital raised by the investment fund. It is $800,000, not $800 million.
A story about Willie Nelson ("No Place for Me," WW, Aug. 30, 2017) misidentified the name of the decommissioned nuclear plant near Goble. The plant is Trojan, not Hanford.
WW regrets the errors.
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