For a couple of decades, the Doerner Fir, currently measured at 327 feet and nestled in a pocket of massive old growth trees above the East Fork Brummit Creek in eastern Coos County, held the distinction of being the world’s tallest known tree that wasn’t a coast redwood. That distinction ended when, in 2008, a mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) in the Arve Valley in Tasmania was measured at 329.7 feet. And in 2019, a yellow meranti (Shorea faguetiana), a tropical hardwood measuring 331 feet in height, was discovered in the Danum Valley in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
The drive to the half-mile Doerner Fir Trail is what has put me off visiting in the past. It’s in the middle of a hiking desert, up miles of winding forest roads on BLM territory in the Coast Range north of Highway 42 between Winston and Coos Bay. However, the journey was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, with the road surfaces paved except for the last 4 ½ miles. When you leave the Coos Bay Wagon Road, a sign tells you the roads are “not maintained in winter.” Indeed, I was lucky to arrive after a spate of winter cleanup, as there were numerous areas where fallen trees had been cleared and one spot where a slide had been cleaned up. The only vehicle I saw was a logging truck. The last unpaved section of the route, where there’s the only sign you’ll see about the Doerner Fir, was still strewn with minor debris and got a little confusing as there were several newly graveled, unsigned logging roads spinning off in the last mile and half. At the trailhead are a vault toilet and a picnic table.
The trail itself has not been maintained since the winter storms, so there were a few trees to climb over and a particularly dense tangle down near the first creek. Several big trees along the way grab your attention. Others, perhaps once taller than the Doerner Fir, lie on their sides and nurse future generations of hemlocks, which are filling the understory. You first see the Doerner Fir across a ravine, and it looks neither spectacular nor particularly taller than some of its neighbors. One has to admire the discernment of those who discovered it and decided it was worth measuring. The trail crosses a small creek and ends up right at the tree, which you can easily touch across a split-rail fence. The plaque that had been placed here has disappeared.
The Doerner Fir, originally known as the Brummit Fir after the nearby creek, was renamed for Ray Doerner, a Douglas County commissioner and BLM employee. The tree was first measured in 1989. Looking up at the canopy, a lot of what you see is the tall thin cedar, perhaps 200 feet tall, that is growing right next to it. The top thirty feet or so of the fir is dead. Although the tree should continue grow in girth for decades, it may not get much taller and when the dead part snaps off, the record will go to another Douglas-fir.
Other Douglas-firs were taller than this one, and there are many still standing that are wider in diameter (the Doerner Fir is 11 ½ feet) and more massive in volume. A fir logged in Washington state in 1897 was said to be 465 feet tall, 80 feet taller than the tallest measured redwood! A more reliable measurement exists of the Mineral Tree, 393 feet in height and thus taller than Hyperion, the current champion redwood. A section of the Mineral Tree, which fell in a windstorm, can be seen at the Wind River Arboretum in Washington. Some discussion revolves around the premise that Douglas-firs were actually the tallest trees that ever lived.
The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
- Don Nelsen
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Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
Thanks for the interesting report and the history. I wonder how tall that fallen fir was that you and I saw while exploring a few days ago. Before the top died and broke off, that is.
Almost all the oldest firs I've seen have dead tops and most of those are broken off as well. In perfect conditions, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a Douglas fir, sometime in the past, held the record for tallest tree of all time.
dn
Almost all the oldest firs I've seen have dead tops and most of those are broken off as well. In perfect conditions, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a Douglas fir, sometime in the past, held the record for tallest tree of all time.
dn
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Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
Count me skeptical that the tallest-ever Douglas fir was taller than the tallest-ever coast redwood. It's reliably documented, sure, that there were Douglas firs taller than any extant coast redwood. But if what's left of old-growth Douglas firs is the merest table-scraps, what's left of old-growth coast redwoods is doubly table-scraps. The odds are quite high that much taller redwoods than any contemporary tree were cut down in the old-growth logging frenzy. Virtually none of the coast redwood belt made it into the National Forest system--it was all captured by private landowners before the National Forest system came into existence, and the "best" stuff we have left was all bought back (most of it by private citizens and the state of California) from logging companies.Don Nelsen wrote: ↑February 11th, 2022, 5:26 pmThanks for the interesting report and the history. I wonder how tall that fallen fir was that you and I saw while exploring a few days ago. Before the top died and broke off, that is.
Almost all the oldest firs I've seen have dead tops and most of those are broken off as well. In perfect conditions, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a Douglas fir, sometime in the past, held the record for tallest tree of all time.
dn
A good way to convince yourself of the dominance of coast redwoods over Douglas fir is to visit, say, Del Norte state park, where coast redwoods and Douglas firs co-occur. Many of the Douglas firs one finds there are extremely tall, but quite skinny for their height. It looks like they're straining, exerting maximum effort, sacrificing girth, to keep up with the redwoods, because they have to. Mind you, I'm quite fond of old-growth Douglas firs, and by most standards they are very big trees. But put 'em up against redwoods, they're like kids, little brothers. Coast redwoods are just so impressively hugeous...
- retired jerry
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Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
There are some huge Douglas Fir in the Redwoods, like in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Just walking on random trails, like the Rhododendron trail. Maybe not quite as big as Redwoods. They're both huge
Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
I always wonder what the odds are that the highest tree we identify actually is the highest. Not like it's easy to know from the ground and trails cover a tiny percentage of ground. I suppose if they did exhaustive aerial surveys they would have a better chance. But if the difference between the highest and those around it is small, it would still be hard.
- BurnsideBob
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Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
The people really into tall trees climb them to get a measurement. There is a group called "Ascending the Giants" that specializes in finding and measuring the tallest trees. They have climbed the Doerner Fir and were featured in an Oregon Field Guide segment a few years ago:
https://www.opb.org/television/programs ... t-doerner/
https://www.opb.org/television/programs ... t-doerner/
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- raveneditions
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Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
drm, you're right that spotting the tallest trees has historically been a very long shot. But the odds improved somewhat in recent years with the use of aerial lidar imagery. I think Michael Taylor is pretty confident that by now he has spotted the tallest sugar pines, ponderosa pines, and redwoods.
The Doug-firs said to have been taller than any redwoods, like 415 feet in Linn Valley, BC, were measured and written down. You can dispute these records as unreliable, or you can say taller redwoods probably grew back then as well, but to me it seems likely that loggers would have gone to the trouble of measuring and writing down the heights of truly exceptional redwoods.
415 feet is also close to the theoretical physical limit to tree height: past a certain point, it becomes impossible to raise sap against the force of gravity. Studies calculated the limit was between 400 and 426. Thus, 465 feet seems extremely unlikely.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ge ... height.pdf
The Doug-firs said to have been taller than any redwoods, like 415 feet in Linn Valley, BC, were measured and written down. You can dispute these records as unreliable, or you can say taller redwoods probably grew back then as well, but to me it seems likely that loggers would have gone to the trouble of measuring and writing down the heights of truly exceptional redwoods.
415 feet is also close to the theoretical physical limit to tree height: past a certain point, it becomes impossible to raise sap against the force of gravity. Studies calculated the limit was between 400 and 426. Thus, 465 feet seems extremely unlikely.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ge ... height.pdf
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—Gary Snyder, back in the day
—Gary Snyder, back in the day
Re: The Doerner Fir 2-8-22
Heh. I grew up in that hiking desert. Glad it is still there. Did you visit the Big Tree in Powers, too?It’s in the middle of a hiking desert, up miles of winding forest roads on BLM territory in the Coast Range north of Highway 42 between Winston and Coos Bay.