1910 Wildfires in the Northern Rockies (USA)

I am a fan of PBS and happened upon the listing for American Experience on January 22nd. American Experience reran their 2015 documentary on the Big Burn last night. I had watched it four years ago and enjoyed and watched it again last night. And I recorded it so I could watch it again. If you are accessing this post within a few days of January 23rd, you may be able to watch the stream on PBS American Experience: The Big Burn, it takes about an hour. At some point PBS will deactivate the stream, but if you go to the link you may watch several clips from the documentary. The film is based on Timothy Egan's book, The Big Burn which I just started to read.

The Big Burn is about the 1910 wildfires that hit the northern Rockies in the summer of 1910. It had been a very dry summer with prime conditions for wildfires. By early August, upwards of 2,000 wildfires were burning in the northern Rockies. On August 20th, hurricane force winds causing a big blow-up with the different wildfires merging and ultimately burning three million acres, killing 86 people including 78 firefighters. The United States Forest Service has a short write up of what they call The Great Blowup of 1910 that you may find here.

Updated on December 20, 2020: the video that I originally embedded here is no longer available.

Stories from survivors of the 2003 Cedar Fire (San Diego County CA)

The Cedar Fire, driven by Santa Anna winds burned over 280,000 acres in San Diego County California in late October/early November of 2003. In the first 24 hours something like 100,000 acres had burned. Fifteen people died including one firefighter. 2,232 residences were destroyed, 22 commercial buildings and 566 outbuildings were destroyed. The wildfire was human caused by a lost hunter setting a signal fire.

The Cedar Fire occurred some five years before I got interested in learning about wildland fires and blogging about what I was learning. Memory can be a funny thing, but I am pretty certain that I remember hearing about this wildfire through newspaper and other media accounts.

A friend of mine told me about, The Fire Outside my Window: A Survivor Tells the True Story About the Epic Cedar Fire, by Sharon Millers Younger. It is on my list of books to read.

I was looking for something to watch on TV last night (Sunday, August 13th) and came across a preview for NBC's Dateline Survivor. The show's title was "Inferno" and the description told me that I would hear survivors of the 2003 Cedar Fire tell there stories. Not all stories have happy endings, one family tells of the death of their young daughter. I watched "Inferno" with interest because of my wildland firefighters recommendation of Sharon Millers Younger's book. It turned out that Ms. Younger and her husband were among those who told their stories about surviving the Cedar Fire.

I watched the show with interest because it gave me a view of the experience of surviving an epic fire such as the Cedar Fire. A view that I don't ordinarily get to see. Not a comfortable show to watch, but important for me to watch. I have a lot to think about, and expect that I will have more to think about after I read Younger's book. The two hour shows focuses mainly on the stories of some of the survivors of the Cedar Fire. If you want an analysis or after action report of the wildfire, this is not the show for you.

For those who are interested, here is a link to an NBC site with what I think is the full edition of "Inferno". Note that you will have to disable your ad blocker, if you have one. I had difficulty disabling the ad blocker on Fire Fox but was able to disable my ad blocker on both Chrome and Safari on my Apple Mac. I don't know how long NBC will have this show online for free viewing. I don't know how long the NBC I linked to will have the full edition of "Inferno" on their website. If Dateline NBC has uploaded the show to their Youtube channel (NBC Dateline), I can not find it.

Historic footage of the Grumman S2A and TBM Avengers (CDF) and B-26 (Lynch)

Historic footage of the S2A (California Div. of Forestry), TBM Avenger (California Div. of Forestry), and B-26 tankers (Lynch).



direct link to video

History - 1910 wildfires

Continuing with videos of notable historic wildfires, here is a video from Fed Flix on the 1910 wildfires, allow about 30 minutes to watch the video.



direct link to video page on Fed Flix

Description of video from Fed Flix: National Interagency Fire Center, Century of Fire - Part 11 - The Fires of 1910, 2010 Fireline Safety Refresher Training. Producer: National Interagency Fire Center.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient. 

History - 1961 wildfire in Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Santa Ynez CA

Following up on historic videos on wildfires that I posted a couple of days ago, I am sharing another video that is archived on the the FedFlix Archive. This video, in this video you will learn about the 1961 wildfire that burned in and near the communities of Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Santa Ynez CA in November of 1961.



direct link to video

Video description and reference: National Archives and Records Administration - ARC Identifier 13356 / Local Identifier 95.60 - Design for disaster - Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. Division of State and Private Forestry. Fire and Aviation Management Staff. (1986). Depicts the Bel-Air, Brentwood, and Santa Ynez Fires of November, 1961. Depicts dramatic scenes of homes and watershed burning. Measures to prevent similar tragedies are stressed.

The video references Santa Anna Winds, and I shared a short video on the causes of Santa Anna Winds on October 28, 2011.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient. 

History - 1970 fire Holocast in CA

A bit of history. The video that I am embedding here is called Countdown to Calamity (1971) about what the videographer calls a thirteen day fire holocaust in California in 1970.



direct link to video on archives dot org

Description for video from archive.org: National Archives and Records Administration - ARC Identifier 13352 / Local Identifier 95.56 - Countdown to calamity - Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. Division of State and Private Forestry. Fire and Aviation Management Staff. (1986). A documentary film of one of California's greatest fire disasters which occurred in 1970. I found out about this video on a thread on the wildlandfire hotlist forums called remember when. Perhaps you want to take a few moments and check out that forum to read the shares of some who fought fires in CA during the 1960s/1970s.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient. 

Lethbridge Alberta wildfire of Nov. 27, 2011

Some of you may know that I've been trying to learn a bit more about wildland firefighting in Canada. I've been focusing recently on Alberta. So, I did what I often do and ended up on youtube where I found two videos of what I hope are the same wildfire, a wildfire that burned in Lethbridge, Alberta on Nov. 27, 2011, an extremely windy day with winds blowing up to 120 km/hour (about 75 miles per hour). A brief description of that fire may be found here and an article from The Star. I came up the first video, about 5 minutes of impressive footage. Wanting to learn a little more, I did a quick search on youtube and found the second footage, taken from the air on what I believe was the morning after the fire.


direct link to video


direct link to video

Virginia Hills Fire (Alberta Canada) of 1998

Continuing with what my article on Alberta Canada's forests, (here) I thought that some of you might enjoying watching this fifteen minute video on the Virginia Hills Fire (1998) in Alberta Canada.


direct link to video

Remembering Mann Gulch

I was reminded about the Mann Gulch Fire last week when I read this post on Wildfire Today. On Aug. 5, 1949, 13 smokejumpers died fighting the Mann Gulch Fire.

You see, when I got interested in wildland firefighting, I knew that a former professor of mine from grad school, Mark, might be able to help me. I knew that Mark had been interested in forestry as a young man. When I was preparing for an exam, I read a little about forestry (under Mark's direction) for an exam in rural planning.

I had kept in touch with Mark over the years since I finished grad school, so I figured I had nothing to lose by contacting Mark to ask him to suggest books on wildland fire fighting. He did not disappoint. He suggested that I read Norman Maclean's book, Young Men and Fire about the Mann Gulch Fire and the smoke jumpers who died there. I read the book. I'm not quite sure what to say except that I was moved by what I read. And by the end of the book, I knew that I wanted to learn more. I suspect that I would have heard about the Mann Gulch Fire on my own at some point, but I'm glad that I read about this fire early on.

So, I'd like to thank Mark for suggesting the book to me, and for his support of me over the years, including my efforts here on this blog. Thanks Mark!

 I found the video that I embedded here on the Mann Gulch Fire from archives.org, on this page.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient. 

Wildfre! 1970 wildfires in WA

This is another video released by the National Archives and Records Administration and freely hosted at FedFlix Internet Archives. This video is about wildfires that burned in the summer of 1970 in the state of Washington in the Wenatchee National Forest. It is a long video, about 50 minutes.

Smokey conditions along with wind may have kept aircraft away from the fire for the first few days. You will see some footage of helicopters with buckets working the fire about 30 minutes or so into the video. And at about 40 minutes, you will see s few minutes of nice footage of air tankers working the fire.

It is worth the time to watch this video, so if you don't have time right now, come back later when you have about 50 minutes to spare. It is worth it.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient. 

Watershed Wildfire (Los Padres Ntl. Forest 1958)

About a week ago, Rambling Chief made this post about three historical wildfire documentaries that are now freely available at the FedFlix video archive. I believe that history is important, so I am going to make individual posts of these three videos, in chronological order. This is video is about a wildfire that burned in 1958 in the Los Padres National Forest in California, dubbed the Watershed Fire. I'll post the next video in a few days, so stay tuned. Or, you can visit RamblingChiefs via the link above to watch all three.

Allow about 20 minutes to watch this video.

Added on June 15, 2016: I don't think that either the link or the embedded video on this article is working. Over the next several days, I'll try to take some time to get new links for you. Please be patient.