Great fire of 1910
The Great Fire of 1910 ( English Great Fire of 1910 , also Big Blowup , Big Burn or Devil's Broom fire ) was a devastating forest fire in northeast Washington , northern Idaho and western Montana , which reached its peak on August 20 and 21, 1910 . With an affected total area of more than 12,000 km², it is one of the largest forest fires of modern times in the United States: 86 people were killed in the flames, including 78 firefighters. The high losses among firefighters influenced the strategy of fighting forest fires significantly in the decades that followed.
Before these forest fires, the US Forest Service had only lost one man on duty. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 , it is the accident that has killed most of the firefighters in the United States to this day.
Causes and course of the fire
The first forest fires broke out in the region as early as April 1910. Although the US Forest Service, which was entrusted with fighting forest fires, was only five years old and suffered from inadequate equipment, lack of staff and insufficient financial flexibility, its leadership was optimistic about mastering the upcoming forest fire season. At the end of July 1910 there was a fire in more than 3,000 places in the forest area. More than 100 fires were caused by flying sparks from coal-fired locomotives, others caused careless campers. In August it had not rained in the region for three months and the forests had completely dried up.
Countless volunteers have been mobilized to support the US Forest Service. In addition, President William Howard Taft sent 4,000 US Army soldiers , including the Buffalo Soldiers , to the area. On August 19, 1910, the fires appeared to be largely under control.
Unemployment was high in the area after the Great Northern Railway laid off a large number of workers earlier in the year . There have been multiple allegations that the unemployed deliberately set fires in order to be employed to fight the fire. These allegations have never been confirmed. The central cause of the fire was lightning strike during heat thunderstorms, and there were also many small individual occasions. The big fires only reached their devastating proportions because they originated in areas far away from human settlements and traffic routes and were able to spread there undisturbed.
The Big Blow Up
On August 20, 1910, strong westerly winds came up. They kindled the fires again and from the many small fires they merged into a single sea of fire. 7,500 km² of forest area burned on August 20 and 21, most of it within the first six hours. The dried up conifers went up in flames in a split second and fire rollers set entire canyons on fire. The cities were evacuated by trains in the path of fire and firefighters in the forests tried to escape the inferno. The clouds of smoke darkened the sun in New York State , and the ashes were carried as far as Greenland . On the night of August 23, the weather finally cooled down and there was light rain. So the fires finally subsided and could be extinguished.
Fire fighting
On August 20, 1910, around 10,000 people were in the woods to fight fires, including US Forest Service employees, soldiers and volunteers. If you tried coordinated fire fighting with the simplest of means at the beginning, the extreme conditions during the Big Blowup ensured that it was only a matter of survival. Edward Pulaski , a US Forest Service legend, described the conditions as follows:
“The whole world seemed to us men back in those mountains to be aflame. Many thought that it really was the end of the world. Under such conditions, it would have been worse than foolhardy to attempt to fight the fires. It was a case of saving our lives. I got on my horse and went where I could, gathering men. Most of them were unfamiliar with the country, and I knew that if they ever got out they would have to be led out… ”
“For us men in the mountains, the whole world seemed to be on fire. Many thought it was really the end of the world. Under the circumstances, it would have been more than foolhardy to try to put out the fire. It was about saving our lives. I got on my horse and gathered men wherever I could. Most of them were strangers in the area and I knew that if they were ever to escape the fire they would have to be brought out ... "
Pulaski himself was able to save 45 men in an abandoned mine. 39 of them survived the night after he had prevented them from leaving the mine, sometimes under threat of armed violence. 78 firefighters were not so lucky and stayed in the woods. At Storm Creek alone, a 29-man unit was overrun by the flames. Their bodies were later recovered and buried by a unit of the Buffalo Soldiers.
Effects
86 people lost their lives and several thousand their homes. Of the 78 firefighters killed, nine have remained unidentified to this day. Several cities were completely destroyed, others were badly damaged. So the entire eastern part of Wallace , Idaho , burned down .
In total, more than 12,000 km² of forest were affected. This affected the federal forest areas of the Bitterroot , Cabinet , Clearwater , Coeur d'Alene , Flathead , Kaniksu , Kootenai , Lewis and Clark , Lolo and the St. Joe National Forest . Glacier National Park , which was only established on May 1, 1910, was also badly hit by the fires.
In order to save the battered reputation of the fledgling US Forest Service after the fire, the role of soldiers in fighting the fire was downplayed and that of rangers exaggerated in the first reports. As ex-President Theodore Roosevelt said in September 1910:
“I want to call your attention to the wonderful work done by the Forest Service in fighting the great fires this year. With very inadequate appropriation made for the Forest Service, nevertheless that service, because of the absolute honesty and efficiency with which it has been conducted, has borne itself so as to make an American proud of having such a body of public servants; and they have shown the same qualities of heroism in battling with the fire, at the peril and sometimes to the loss of their lives, that the firemen of the great cities show in dealing with burning buildings. "
“I would like to draw your attention to the wonderful work the Forest Service has done in fighting the big fires this year. Very inadequate in resources, yet, because of the absolute honesty and efficiency with which it was directed, it has done so that it makes an American proud to have such officials; and they have shown the same degree of heroism in the fight with fire, at risk of death and sometimes with the loss of their lives, as the fire fighters of the big cities show when dealing with burning buildings. "
After the fire, the previous approach of not fighting smaller forest fires in the hinterland as long as they did not threaten settlements came under criticism. The US Forest Service and the United States Fire Services then went on to fight every forest fire. This tactic led to organizational and technical innovations like the fire jumpers , but also to accidents like the Mann Gulch forest fire . It was not questioned until the 1980s due to new ecological research on fire as an environmental factor , and it was not completely abandoned until after the fires in Yellowstone National Park in 1988 .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Forest History Society: The 1910 Fires (accessed June 17, 2019)
- ↑ a b U.S. Forest Service: "Fallen Forest Service Employees and Fire Aviation Contractors" (English), as of end of 2016, accessed on June 21, 2017
- ^ "Deadliest incidents resulting in the deaths of 8 or more firefighters" , accessed on June 21, 2016.
- ↑ a b c U.S. Forest Service: "The Great Fire of 1910" ( PDF , 144 KB), p. 2ff, accessed on June 20, 2017
- ↑ Michael Jamison: "The Great Fire of 1910" (English), Montana Outdoors, accessed June 20, 2016
- ^ Arthur Hart: "Idaho history: The Great Forest Fire of 1910 was Idaho's deadliest" (English), at www.idahostatesman.com on September 6, 2015, accessed on June 20, 2017
- ^ Hal K. Rothman: A Test of Adversity and Strength - Wildland Fire in the National Park System . National Park Service 2005, p. 27
- ↑ "1910 Fire Season - The Wild Frontier" ( Memento from October 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ↑ National Forests Magazine: "Blazing Battles: The 1910 Fire and Its Legacy" , accessed June 20, 2017
- ↑ Jim Petersen: "THE 1910 FIRE" . Evergreen Magazine, Winter Edition 1994–1995, pp. 8–18 (accessed June 17, 2019)
- ↑ Jim Kershner: "Great fire wiped out wild towns of Taft, Grand Forks" , at www.spokesman.com on August 20, 2010, accessed June 20, 2017
- ^ “The Great 1910 Fire” , accessed June 20, 2017
- ↑ Jacob Roberts: “The Best of Intentions” (English), Chemical Heritage Foundation, accessed June 20, 2017