The Great Fire Of 1910, The Largest Wildfire In U.S. History
Public DomainA pine forest in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after the Great Fire of 1910 blazed through.
In the hot, dry summer of 1910, a devastating wildfire burned through Idaho, Montana, Washington, and British Columbia. Often referred to as the “Big Blowup,” the Great Fire of 1910 was the first large-scale disaster faced by the recently established U.S. Forest Service, and it left a lasting legacy on wildfire management in the United States.
A series of small fires that were ignited by things like lightning and sparks from passing trains had been burning across the region for several weeks, but on August 20, hurricane-force winds swept through the Northern Rockies, combining the smaller blazes into a monstrous wildfire that was unstoppable.
According to the Forest History Society, one forester saw that the fire was hundreds of feet high and “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.”
Public DomainOne-third of the town of Wallace, Idaho, was destroyed in the wildfire.
Smoke from the deadly wildfire could reportedly be seen as far away as New York, and boats in the Pacific couldn’t see the stars at night because they were obscured by ash.
Over three million acres burned over a single weekend, making the blaze the largest wildfire in American history. The fire killed a total of 87 people in the rural area, including at least 78 firefighters. It remains the second-deadliest firefighting disaster in U.S. history, surpassed only by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
