Dallas family's Christmas tree farm was scorched. Why it wasn't worse 4%
By Capi Lynn3%
8/1/2026, 4:03:11 AM
Keywords: Wildfires, Oregon, Christmas Tree Farm, Dallas, Fire, Oak Villa Fire, Beal Farm, Firefighters, Helicopter, Water Drops
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Sunk Cost Effect, Self-Serving Bias, and Loss Aversion, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 4.3% saturation with 70 hits. Analysis detected 719 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,645 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 12.7% and a BS Rank of 4% (24,420 of 25,272 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 96.60% of the article peer group.
DALLAS — With the summer’s first 100-degree day in the forecast, Don Beal started early July 21 at the family Christmas tree farm.
Weed abatement and checking some of the farm’s 10,000 trees for mites or insects usually top the list this time of year.
“I had gotten all my chores done early and had already gone inside and was watching TV with the dog,” he said, his yellow Lab, Anna, beside him.
His wife was across the property at her parents’ home, caring for her mother, who was recovering from recent surgery.
Just before 2 p.m., the driveway alarm sounded.
Beal didn’t see a vehicle approaching but noticed two men from Fowler Construction across the street jogging up the driveway.
They alerted him to a grass fire on an adjacent property behind his home off Oak Villa Road, about 3 miles north of Dallas.
The flames quickly spread along the edge of the 30-acre Beal Farm and escalated into a three-alarm fire, with a dozen agencies and a contract helicopter responding.
Nearby roads were closed, and hundreds of Pacific Power customers lost power.
No evacuations were ordered, though Dallas Fire & EMS helped Jo Ann Beal and her parents leave because of mobility issues.
The Oak Villa Fire scorched more than 50 acres over three properties and destroyed at least 5,000 trees on the Beal Farm, wiping out half of their wholesale tree crops and much of this winter’s expected harvest promised to local scout troops and other organizations.
“It’s sort of depressing,” Don Beal said more than a week later, overlooking the gentle-sloping rows of charred trees.
“But it could have been a whole lot worse.
I could not believe how quickly it spread.
It was pretty scary.”
His family and pets were safe, and no homes or structures were lost — thanks to rapid resource deployment and a whole lot of luck.
More than 60 firefighters battled fast-moving fire
Beal said the fire originated in a cherry orchard east of his house and barn.
The orchard is on property owned by Wilcox Farms Inc. of Roy, Washington, according to Polk County property records.
The initial call came in at 1:28 p.m., according to Lt.
Zach Leigh of Southwestern Polk Fire District.
Leigh, the incident commander, called for a second alarm almost immediately upon arriving, recognizing the need for more resources.
At 2:03 p.m., he called a third alarm after it became clear the fire exceeded what local crews could handle.
He also called for air support at that time.
Fire officials first tried to limit access on nearby roads, but after citizens “severely impeded” operations, Leigh asked the Polk County Sheriff’s Office to close Oak Villa Road between Kings Valley Highway and E.
Ellendale Avenue while crews worked to contain the fire.
More than 25 apparatus and approximately 60 firefighters responded from 12 departments and districts, in alphabetical order: Amity, Carlton, Dallas, Dayton, Falls City, Grand Ronde, Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon State Fire Marshal, Polk County No.
1, Salem Fire, Southwestern Polk, and Yamhill.
Beal Farm once hosted popular pumpkin patch
Beal stayed on the property in case emergency crews had questions, but there was little he could do beyond loading a few cases of water into his side-by-side and offering bottles to firefighters.
“It's a very helpless feeling,” he told the Statesman Journal during a recent visit to his property.
He described how the fire raced along the fence line and then south through undergrowth in the oak grove, the park-like setting where he and Jo Ann once hosted an annual pumpkin patch.
For about a decade, the Beals opened their pumpkin patch each October to weekend visitors and weekday class field trips.
Students from nearby schools and as far away as Lincoln City and Tillamook came for more than just a pumpkin.
The “I Spy Nature Trail” through the oak grove was always a fun activity.
The Beals placed items along the path for them to find, such as a coffee pot, a hat, or a toy car.
They also opened the farm each December for U-pick Christmas trees, ending both retail operations in 2023 after moving his wife's aging parents to the property.
A trail still winds through the oak grove, most recently becoming a well-worn route for firefighters battling the July 21 blaze.
Don Beal said he saw flames at least 25 feet high among the oak trees, though the blackened trunks of some suggest they climbed more than 40 feet.
Electricity shut off to 356 Pacific Power customers
Less than an hour after the fire was reported that day, Pacific Power initiated emergency wildfire de-energization procedures.
It initially turned off electricity to 25 customers at 2:25 p.m., then fire officials on scene requested power be shut off to an additional 30 customers at 3:04 p.m.
De-energization, also referred to as Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS), is a safety practice used during extreme fire risk.
Power companies shut off transmission and distribution lines to reduce the chance of ignition and protect first responders.
Fire and smoke from the Oak Villa Fire later caused an outage affecting another 301 customers.
Pacific Power officials said the outage resulted from enhanced safety settings on the company’s equipment functioning as designed.
The settings automatically de-energize power lines within fractions of a second when contacted by debris, wildlife or strong winds.
Helicopter delivers 103 targeted water drops on fire
Beal watched the fire continue to spread south and then west across their lower field of Christmas trees.
They had mostly Douglas firs with a few Nordmann and Grand firs mixed in.
A bulldozer from Nick’s Timber Services of Sheridan carved a hard fire line between the upper field of trees and his in-laws’ home.
Friends and neighbors of Beal Farm also showed up to help wet and cut fire lines, including Tom Van Well and his water truck and George Smith and his tractor and disc harrow.
“They helped save the day, for sure,” Beal said.
So did the helicopter that flew in from Southern Oregon and used a 320-gallon “Bambi Bucket” to scoop water from a nearby reservoir and deliver 103 targeted drops on the fire.
It was contracted through the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Severity Program, an asset-allocation initiative providing aggressive response to fire danger and weather conditions across the state.
The helicopter started making water drops between 3:30 and 4 p.m.
The Beals indirectly helped fight the fire.
“They did a pretty good job of prevention and maintained their property fairly well, which afforded us the time to get on it,” Leigh said.
“Their mitigation efforts helped.”
Crews had resources needed to stop fire — and got lucky
Dry agricultural conditions and searing heat fueled the Oak Villa Fire.
Leigh said the ambient temperature reached 102 degrees at one point, with relative humidity at 28%.
Sustained winds were 3-5 mph, with gusts of 8-12 mph.
“All these things are bad for fire,” he said.
Leigh called the response phenomenal, both in the air and on the ground.
He said firefighters gained control at the dry creek bed running parallel to the Beal Farm on the neighboring property.
Beyond the creek bed stood a large, dense grove of oaks.
If flames had reached it, he said, the fire could have burned another 100 acres.
“As far as a fire that could have been bad, everything aligned for us to get all the resources we needed to stop it,” Leigh said.
“But really what it comes down to is, we were lucky.”
The helicopter made its last water drop at about 7:30 p.m., when the fire was reported to be 50% contained.
Leigh said he didn’t start releasing crews from the scene until about 8 p.m.
One truck with three firefighters remained on scene overnight to monitor the lines.
Power was gradually restored for the 356 customers between 9:38 p.m. and 10:09 p.m.
Christmas trees take eight years to reach harvest height
The cause of the fire has not been released.
The Southwestern Polk Fire District is working with the Oregon State Fire Marshal on the investigation.
Leigh said the report should be wrapped up within 30 days, calling it “pretty straightforward.”
Don Beal said the state fire marshal investigator was on scene the day of the fire and spent two days on scene afterward.
The Beals have crop insurance that should cover some of their losses.
What it won’t cover is the eight years it will take for a new crop of Christmas trees to reach harvest height.
“Even if we were to replant right now, it would be eight years before we can make any money from the trees, and during those eight years, we're still paying to fertilize them and trim them and all that stuff,” Don Beal said.
The cleanup process comes before he can even think about replanting.
“Right now, we're getting estimates from land clearing companies to give to our insurance company,” he said.
Cleanup will mean removing every burned tree down to the stump and reworking the soil, possibly adding nutrients and allowing the ground to rest a year or two before seedlings are planted.
The fire will not deter the Beals, who purchased the property with Christmas trees in 2011.
They love their farm and their community.
Jo Ann posted a Facebook thank you to the community for its prayers and offers of assistance and to fire crews, friends and neighbors who helped save their farm and homes.
When someone responded by suggesting an online fundraiser for Beal Farm, they declined.
“We appreciate the thought so much, but we don’t need people to donate their hard-earned money,” Don Beal said.
“We’ll be OK.”
Capi Lynn is a senior reporter for the Statesman Journal.
Send comments, questions and tips to her at clynn@statesmanjournal.com.
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