Tag: history

According to an article in the Rapid City Journal, the 1959 Deadwood fire which started on September 8, 1959 was the most destructive fire to private property, homes, and infrastructure recorded in South Dakota. Some other stats in the article are difficult to believe, such as the claim that there were 1,000 firefighters working on the fire within the first hour.

…(Jerome) Harvey drove his truck toward town and was flagged down by a group of volunteer firefighters who were working the north section of the fire.

“They were trying to get back into Deadwood, so they piled on the flatbed truck,” he said.

After he found a safe parking place, Harvey went to the Forest Service to ask if they needed help battling the blaze. A fire check point had been set up on Main Street Deadwood in front of the Franklin Hotel.

“They put anyone to work who had blood in them,” Harvey said.

So, he loaded fire equipment in his Universal Jeep and took off toward Strawberry Hill.

He and other volunteers were working spot fires on the south end of the hill when they heard the roar of the approaching wildfire.

“There’s this roaring noise a fire makes when it is topping in the trees,” he said.

“I knew we were going to get trapped, so I started down the hill toward Little Strawberry Creek. My only thinking was to get in that water.”

Harvey and the others lay down in the creek.

“The fire burned right over the top of us,” he said. “None of us got hurt.”

In the summer of 1988 numerous fires burned 793,000 acres of Yellowstone National Park as well as large tracts of land surrounding the park. Half of the acres burned inside the park resulted from fires that started outside the boundary. Nine of the fires were human-caused, and 42 were started by lightning.

On the worst single day, August 20, 1988, tremendous winds pushed fire across more than 150,000 acres. Throughout August and early September, some park roads and facilities were closed to the public, and residents of nearby towns outside the park feared for their property and their lives.

Yellowstone’s fire management policy was the topic of heated debate, from the restaurants of park border towns to the halls of Congress. Following this event, the National Park Service and other federal land management agencies rewrote their policies affecting how they managed fires with less than full suppression strategies.

It was 50 years ago, Saturday, that two fires threatened Ashland, Oregon. Here is the beginning of an article about the fires, from the Mail Tribune:

It was 105 degrees on Aug. 8, 1959, when two fires broke out in the dry grass above the railroad tracks by Jackson Hot Springs, near Highway 99 and South Valley View Road.

The fires grew quickly, driven by steady winds, and began climbing through the Ashland Mine Road area toward Wrights Creek canyon, raising a giant plume of smoke and ash.

By nightfall, the flames had traveled five miles to the crest of the Ashland watershed, and thousands of awed townsfolk watched as the flames consumed big pines and firs that exploded in the dark. Many feared the flames would creep into town.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival went on with its production of “Antony and Cleopatra,” despite the flames on nearby hills, helping the Ashland Fire Department keep traffic off the streets.

“It was a terrible conflagration,” said Bill Patton, the festival’s retired executive director. “The trees exploded like Roman candles in the intense heat. The wind was blowing. It was amazing. We’d turn and look at the audience and here were a thousand faces, cherry red, reflecting the flames.”

The actors playing Antony and Cleopatra were visiting Ashland, staying in the motor court then located in Lithia Park, recalled Patton’s wife, Shirley. “When they left for the theater, they took their precious things with them. But the fire stopped at the crest.”

The rest of the article is HERE.