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Incident Name: Big Burn or Big Blowup of 1910
Date: August 20 and 21, 1910
Personnel: many lives lost
Age: unknown
Agency/Organization: US Forest Service and others
Position: varies
Summary: During the very dry summer of 1910, thousands of small lightning fires burned in northeast Washington, northern Idaho's panhandle, and western Montana's wild and virgin timberland. Some of these fires burned for months. On August 20, the passage of a cold front brought 70 mph hurricane-force Palouse winds which fanned the many small fires into a massive crown-fire conflagration that burned approximately three million acres in two days -- August 20th and 21st -- creating the largest fire in recorded US history. The area burned included parts of the Cabinet, Clearwater, Coeur d'Alene, Flathead, Kaniksu, Kootenai, Lewis and Clark, Lolo, and St. Joe National Forests. The fires killed 87 people, 78 of them firefighters.
Pulaski Mine Entrance
Victim List (from the Forest Service List of the Fallen)
| K Anderson - Coeur d'Alene NF Venis Attene - Coeur d'Alene NF H.W. Baker - Coeur d'Alene NF A.M. Barrett - Cabinet NF O. Bing - Coeur d'Alene NF G.A. Blodgett - Coeur d'Alene NF D. Bruno - Coeur d'Alene NF George W. Cameron - Coeur d'Alene NF D. Cary - Coeur d'Alene NF William Casey - Coeur d'Alene NF Chris Christensen - Coeur d'Alene NF Joe Denen - Coeur d'Alene NF Jim Denten - Coeur d'Alene NF M. Dillo - Coeur d'Alene NF Jimmy Donahue - Coeur d'Alene NF Ed Dunn - Coeur d'Alene NF Ralph Ekhoen - Coeur d'Alene NF O. Ellefson - Coeur d'Alene NF W.J. Elliott - Coeur d'Alene NF George Fease - Cabinet NF Joe Ferre - Coeur d'Alene NF W. Flynn - Coeur d'Alene NF Edward Frye - Coeur d'Alene NF Patrick Grogan - Coeur d'Alene NF Andrew Hanson - Coeur d'Alene NF J. Harp - Coeur d'Alene NF J. Harris - Pend Oreille NF Jack Hill - Coeur d'Alene NF John Hoss - Coeur d'Alene NF Sam Hull - Coeur d'Alene NF Harry Jackson - Coeur d'Alene NF Gus Johnson - Coeur d'Alene NF L. Johnson - Coeur d'Alene NF Pat Kelley - Coeur d'Alene NF |
James D. Kerney - Coeur d'Alene NF James Kerr - Coeur d'Alene NF William Learmouth - Coeur d'Alene NF Lary Levar - Coeur d'Alene NF Frank Masterson - Coeur d'Alene NF George McGurk - Coeur d'Alene NF Ed Miller - Coeur d'Alene NF Ed Murphy - Coeur d'Alene NF W.F. Norton - Coeur d'Alene NF M. Phwiser - Coeur d'Alene NF J.B. Plant - Pend Oreille NF W. Polk - Coeur d'Alene NF George Queere - Coeur d'Alene NF James Riley - Coeur d'Alene NF J. Rusick - Coeur d'Alene NF Frank Sanders - Coeur d'Alene NF Louis Shoman - Coeur d'Alene NF H. Siphers - Coeur d'Alene NF Frank Sketchell - Coeur d'Alene NF George Smith - Coeur d'Alene NF Harry Smith - Coeur d'Alene NF Upton B. Smith- Coeur d'Alene NF J. Stevens - Coeur d'Alene NF George Strong - Cabinet NF L.S. Swartz - Coeur d'Alene NF Frank D. Swick - Coeur d'Alene NF Glenn Taylor - Coeur d'Alene NF M. Thuser - Coeur d'Alene NF L. Ustelo - Coeur d'Alene NF Oscar Weigert - Coeur d'Alene NF E. Williams - Cabinet NF Richard Woods - Coeur d'Alene NF 9 firefighters unidentified from the blow-up of 1910 |
Another Victim List with news reports and stories; includes members of fire crews, their foremen, the fire, place of death and place of internment.
The Injured and Dead: A Missoulian Special Section
Memorial Plaque
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Northern Region Forests where the 1910 fires burned
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Areas across the Northern Region where the 1910 fires burned are in red.
Reports, Documentation, Lessons Learned
- When the Mountains Roared, collection of stories and old news articles by the USDA FS (3,480 K pdf)
- Reports and Articles from the Forest Service Centennial Website
- Photo Gallery from the FS Centennial Website
- People from the FS Centennial Website, includes their writings and bios
- Photo Collection of the 1910 fires from the Forest History Society
- New Staff Ride: 1910 Idaho Fire
- The West is Burning Up!
STORIES THE 1910 FIRE Online Article
By Jim Petersen, Evergreen Magazine, Winter Edition 1994-1995
It was the largest forest fire in American history. Maybe even the largest forest fire ever. No one knows for sure, but even now, it is hard to put into words what it did. For two terrifying days and night's - August 20 and 21, 1910 - the fire raged across three million acres of virgin timberland in northern Idaho and western Montana. Many thought the world would end, and for 86, it did. Most of what was destroyed fell to hurricane-force winds that turned the fire into a blowtorch. Re-constructing what happened leads to an almost impossible conclusion: Most of the cremation occurred in a six-hour period... More at the link.
- The Big Burn: Idaho and Montana, August 1910
Popular Mechanics Online Article
From Page 3: Though the U.S. Forest Service came into existence in 1905, it was the "Big Burn" of 1910 that defined its mission. By the time the first flame leapt from the forest that year, the debate over whether or not to fight wildfires was already being hotly debated across the West. Some people argued that fires were part of a forest's natural evolution. But Teddy Roosevelt conservationists, who staffed the new agency, were eager to protect forests from danger — and fire, they believed, was as perilous as any clear-cut.
The utter destruction caused by the fires of 1910, along with the heroic stand of Edward Pulaski, helped cement an antifire ideology in the Forest Service. Congress poured money into the effort and, by 1935, the head of the service — a veteran of the Big Blowup, Gus Silcox — declared that all forest fires should be extinguished by 10 am the following day. The service created its own army to fight fires, replete with ground troops to dig trenches and set backfires, elite smoke jumpers to parachute into remote areas and an air force of tankers, reconnaissance planes and helicopters.
Even as Silcox was declaring war on wildfires, some foresters and conservationists began to question whether the policy was actually healthy for the ecosystem. Fire, it soon became clear, was an integral part of forest ecology. Yet as waves of people moved into forested areas, it became even more imperative to hold fire back...More at the link.
- NPR: Teddy Roosevelt And The Fire That Saved The Forests Conversation with Tim Egan (audio, 30 min),
Author of The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
- Other books: either entirely about the Fires of 1910 or that include stories about the fires
- Pioneer Days on the Shadowy St. Joe by Orland A. Scott (1968)
- The Big Burn : The Northwest's Forest Fire of 1910 by Stan B. Cohen and Donald C. Miller (1978)
- The Big Burn by Jeanette Ingold (2002)
- The Big Blowup by Betty Goodwin Spencer (out of print)
- Elers Koch: Forty Years a Forester by Elers Koch (1998)
- Up the Swiftwater: A Pictorial History of the Colorful Upper St. Joe River Country by Sandra Crowell and David Asleson (2003)
- Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire by Stephen J Pyne (1982)
- Year of the Fires: The Story of the Great Fires of 1910 by Stephen J Pyne (2001)
- 1910 Fires - Bibliography from forest-history.org
- Her Fire Story
Video from Anna Sestak Lukens (now 90) who witnessed the historic 1910 Fires in western Montana (at age 8)
- 1910 Fire Commemoration, USFS
Northern Region On-line Exhibit
- Centennial Exhibit "When the Mountains Roared: The Fire of 1910
Historical Museum at Fort Missoula
Officially opened on March 20, 2010 and will close January 1, 2012. Museum's hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 12-5PM, until Memorial Day. After Memorial Day, hours are Monday-Saturday, 10AM-5PM, Sunday, 12-5PM. For more information call 728-3476.
- Behind the Big Burn: Explore sights, smells of deadly 1910 fire at Fort Missoula exhibit
If you are looking for a yawn-filled historical exhibit to attend and some mind-numbing facts to make your eyes glaze over, don't even think about attending the new exhibit at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. The exhibit called "When the Mountains Roared: The Fire of 1910" is an interactive exhibit that engages the senses and crackles with life. More at the link.
Contributors to this article: Sammie for all the terrific background research; Marie for photo of Memorial.
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