Among other things: Major wildfires are still possible
Among other things
Major wildfires are still possible
As Montana approaches the half-way mark to the “usual fire season,” we’ve been lucky so far. But a prolonged dry spell and red flag winds and lightning can change the situation rapidly.
We’re fortunate to have quick responding firefighting response personnel and equipment. While considerable acreage may burn some years, houses and businesses sometimes are destroyed, we’re still much better off than the northwest in 1910. That was the grand-daddy of all northwest firestorms.
August 20, 1910, still is regarded with awe in the annals of wildfire history. As that hot, dry summer neared its end in the 40 million acres that comprised the Forest Service’s District 1. Already the district had experienced some 2,500 small fires and 50 large ones in northeastern Washington, the Idaho Panhandle and western Montana. Remarkably, firefighting efforts – as unsophisticated as they were – had contained many fires reasonably well. But they still burned. Then came late summer winds.
With a ratio of the regular Forest Service personnel of one employee to guard 250,000 to 400,000 acres, depending on location, one can imagine the dread folks felt as the winds increased – at times to more than 70 miles per hour.
There were no short-wave radio communications, dependable telephones, water bombing helicopters, slurry-carrying airplanes computer networks, smoke jumpers, spotter aircraft, bulldozers, huge semi-trucks, four-wheel drive vehicles, tankers, large numbers of highly trained firefighters, etc.
In desperation, as 1,700 wildfires spread over parts of Montana, Idaho and Washington in 1910, some 4,000 soldiers were sent to help fight the fires.
Weather conditions were exactly right – or wrong – to create the “perfect storm,” – an awesome firestorm. Within 48 hours some three million acres and between seven and eight billion board feet of lumber burned, Eighty-five persons died, 78 of them firefighters.
Advancing walls of flame gobbled up the eastern third of Wallace, Idaho; all of the western Montana communities of Belknap, Taft, Deborgia and Haugen, and parts of Noxon, Trout Creek, Heron, Tuscor, and Whitepine. It stopped just west of Thompson Falls, skirted around Mullan, and skipped over Avery.
As in all disasters, the event itself was only part of the story. The rest involved people as human nature revealed itself in all of is facets during the big blow up of Aug. 20 and 21, 1910. There was heroism and cowardice, selflessness and selfishness, humor and pathos, triumph and tragedy.
Even significant wildfires in recent years, such as Yellowstone, Red Bench and wilderness blazes, were dwarfed by the awesomeness of the week of Aug. 20, 1910.
Could it happen again? I’ve learned to “never say never.” A lot more people live and do business in the forests now and houses are clustered together in nearby towns and cities. Residents, cities, towns and counties all need to keep properties and nearby lots cleared of weeds, brush, dead trees, old structures, abandoned vehicles, etc.
-Paul Fugleberg