Cascade Locks is home to three ODFW hatcheries: Bonneville, Oxbox and Cascade. Over Labor Day weekend, in the earlier stages of the Eagle Creek Fire, all three hatcheries were evacuated, including 503 members at ODFW who both work and live on site. A small number of ODFW workers remained at Cascade Hatchery to monitor the facilities and preserve the safety of the fish being reared in the three hatcheries.

By mid-September, concerns over mudslides pushing fire debris into the hatcheries and shutting down the flow of water, the Cascade Hatchery was deemed unsafe for nearly 2 million fish located on site. 503 members from all three hatcheries were quickly called back to begin what ODFW workers dubbed The Great Fish Evacuation.

In just two days, 503 members relocated 1.65 million coho salmon and 132,000 Chinook salmon from the Cascade Locks and redistributed the fish into hatcheries throughout the state, thus ensuring ODFW’s prime hatchery objective of “Fostering and sustaining opportunities for sport, commercial, and tribal fishers consistent with the conservation of naturally produced native fish,” and thereby securing healthy future fishing seasons for years to come.