No timeline for repairs of Palouse to Cascades trail bridge

BEVERLY — A wildland fire Aug. 16 destroyed a second historic bridge on the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail near Beverly, meaning an existing detour will stay in place for the time being.

Neil Vargas, assistant chief for Grant County Fire District 10, said the fire was reported about 7 p.m. in a wildland area about 6 miles west of Beverly. Crews confined the fire to about 10 acres, but it burned an abandoned railroad bridge that was part of the trail.

Fred Wert, chair of the Palouse to Cascades Trail Coalition, said the bridge destroyed was near another bridge destroyed in a 2019 fire. Randy Kline, planner with the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, wrote in an email the two bridges are about 70 yards apart.

The trail is managed by the parks and rec commission, and the trestle that burned in 2019 will be replaced in 2022, Kline said.

A detour was put in place after the 2019 fire, Wert said, along a county road from Warden to Beverly. That detour is still in use.

“This trail section already has a detour in place so there will be no change in public access in that respect,” Kline wrote. “We are still assessing the damage, but ultimately we plan to replace both trestles so public access to the trail is fully restored. While we will reassess as work occurs it is likely that the current detour will need to stay in place until both trestles are repaired.”

The Beverly section of the trail is near the tracks of the still-active Royal Slope Railroad, Wert said, so a detour will be required in that area even after the bridges are repaired.

Vargas said fire crews from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also responded to the fire.

“We were all out there,” Vargas said.

GCFD10 crews were on the scene until about 2 p.m. Tuesday, Vargas said, and BLM and WDFW crews were at the site another day. The large timbers of the bridge are much more difficult to extinguish, Vargas said, and crews wanted to guard against the fire reigniting. And the location presents challenges.

“It’s difficult to access,” Vargas said.

The trail uses the old railroad bed, which is built above the creek bed.

“That area tends to be a little bit swampy and wet because it’s right next to the creek (Lower Crab Creek),” Vargas said.