All In A Day's Work

Re-printed from Early Days in the Forest Service, vol. 1

Early one morning in 1929 after traveling all night with a fire crew met Ranger Coleman at the Continental mine near the Canadian boundary on the Kaniksu.  A fire burning on Lime Creek had jumped over into Blue Joe Creek the day before.  Ranger Coleman and I took Sullivan, a foreman, and about thirty-five men over a mountain and down into a deep, heavily timbered basin to the head of the fire.  Here we left Sullivan in charge and climbed a short distance through the fire to the Lime Creek divide where we could look around and make our plans.

It was about 8:30 in the morning but the fire was already burning briskly all around.  While we were talking a lichen covered tree below us crowned out – then another, and almost immediately a general conflagration had started.  We ran down into the fire and called to Sullivan to bring the men and tools out.  Sullivan answered and we waited a few minutes; when the crew did not come, we tried to reach them but found we were already cut off.  We shouted instructions but the roar of the fire evidently drowned our efforts.  We still expected at any moment to see the men come dashing out.  Although only 30 minutes had elapsed since we reached the divide, the fire had already made tremendous headway and was spotting badly all over the basin.

Coleman started out one way and I the other, flanking the fire hoping to meet the men; we were both anxious and alarmed for the safety of the crew.  About noon we met, having gone completely around the fire which had crowned in strips up the steep slopes of the basin, which was now a seething, roaring, cauldron of fire.  Smoke was billowing into great thunderheads thousands of feet in the air.  The fire was no longer confined to the mile-wide basin but was already several miles beyond headed for Canada.

Coleman had come upon one of the crew, a frightened and exhausted Italian who excitedly told him that the boss and his entire crew were down in the fire and burned.  He had run away from the crew when the fire came and had barely escaped with his life.

Coleman and I were frantic, we were responsible for the safety of those men trapped in the fire, but we were helpless.  Sick at heart, we split again.  Coleman headed around one side while I started up a steep heavily timbered ridge a mile high between the old fire and the new.  It was about 2 pm and as I climbed,  I could hear the fire at the foot of the mountain behind me crowning.  Thus far I had not given a thought to my own safety.   I decided that if the fire came up my ridge, I would dash over the rim into the basin side into an unburned rock slide.  I had no sooner made this decision when, a mighty roar, a great wave of fire swept past me up the rock slide.  If the slope that I was on burned next, and it looked as if it would any minute, I was lost.  I told myself I must keep my head and not get panicky.

The sky had become first red then black with smoke, the crowning below grew louder and more threatening, all avenues of escape were cut off.   I could not go back;  I must push on.  I was getting tired,  my breath was gone, my lungs were bursting, my heart was taxed to the limit.   I had to pause every few feet to gasp and rest.  The ever-increasing roar below was terrifying and I was scared.  The hot parched air was dry and filled with ashes.  Again and again, I used my last mite of strength to stagger up that last heart-breaking half mile.

After what seemed hours, I did reach the top and fell exhausted.  A little later I again met Coleman begrimed, exhausted, and dejected; not a trace of the crew had been found.  There was nothing to do but continue the search.  Toward evening we re-entered the fire near where we left the crew in the morning.  The smoke and the heat were still almost unbearable and the hot, ash covered ground was impassable.  With handkerchiefs over our faces, we ran along burned trunks which only that morning had been fine standing timber.  Our shoes were burned and we had to stop and cool our feet after each dash.  The noise of the burning and falling timber was still terrifying.  At intervals we shouted to the men we were sure could no longer answer.  We came to the place where we had left the crew that morning and saw a few burned tools and a partially burned coat.  With almost a sob I shouted once more.  Then, as if from the dead, came the most welcome voice I had ever heard, “ How the hell do we get out of here?”

Safe in a little opening in that great fire we found the men.  Sullivan had heard our call in the morning and had gathered his men and tools and started up to meet us but had run into severe ground fire under the crowning trees and had turned back.  Not knowing the country, he selected an open patch of scab rock about a half-acre in extent to make his stand.  They back fired and fought the fire away from this tiny refuge all day, dodging falling snags and extinguishing fire on their clothing with water from their one water bag.

We led them back through the fire.  The men were all thirsty and hungry but unharmed and in good spirits.  Sullivan said his greatest concern that day had been for the Italian who ran away.   I think Coleman and I each aged 10 years that day.