Forest fires and conservation

[bcripeq]

In another thread Bob mentioned a valley that forest fire fighters had died in the early 1900s. That fire was the fire of 1910. It is a very interesting story about how subsequent forest policy was based on this fire up until the environmental movement. And now how we are in a condition that could result in a disasterous fire that would eclipse the fire of 1910.

So if nothing else, it is a interesting history lesson.


THE 1910 FIRE
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.
A forester named Edward Stahl wrote of flames shooting hundreds of feet in the air, "fanned by a tornadic wind so violent that the flames flattened out ahead, swooping to earth in great darting curves, truly a veritable red demon from hell."

Among the 86 who perished were 28 or 29 men - no one knows for sure - who tried to outrun their fate in a straight upstraight down canyon called Storm Creek.

Two men too terrified to face death took their own lives. One jumped from a burning train and the other shot himself when he feared an approaching fire would overtake him. Two fire fighters fled into flames before the very eyes of horrified comrades huddled in a nearby stream.

Hundreds more survived, many by the grace of God. Ranger Edward Pulaski, who became a hero at a place called the War Eagle Mine, led men with prayers on their lips through a pitch-black darkness punctuated by exploding trees and waves of flames that arced across the night sky.
Perhaps, Edward Stahl would later say, "the men thought the small fires flickering dimly in the darkness were candles burning for the dead."
"The fire turned trees and men into weird torches that exploded like Roman candles," one survivor told a newspaper reporter.



http://www.idahoforests.org/fires.htm

[bcripeq]

More interesting reading.



A CLASH of TITANS
by Jim Petersen
Evergreen Magazine, Winter Edition 1994-1995

No single event in American history did more to shape the United States Forest Service than did the 1910 fire, and no two men ever cast longer shadows over the Forest Service than did Gifford Pinchot and W. B. Greeley, the agency's first and third chief foresters. Beyond all doubt, the way the Forest Service views forest fires today - indeed the way the public views forest fires - is rooted in their handling of events that occurred during and immediately following the 1910 fire.


http://www.idahoforests.org/fires4.htm

President Roosevelt, perhaps the greatest environmental president had this to say



"And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve the forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in itself, nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that, too, is good in itself, but the primary object of our forest policy, as of the land policy of the United States, is the making of prosperous homes. It is part of the traditional policy of home making in our country. Every other consideration comes as secondary... You yourselves have got to keep this practical object before your minds; to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress or safety of the country is of no interest to the Government, and should be of little interest to the forester. Your attention must be directed to the preservation of the forests, not as an end in itself, but as a means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation."

[bcripeq]

more interesting reading...

http://www.missoulian.com/specials/1910/