Big Blowup of 1910 burned 3 million acres

The Whitefish Pilot

The historic wildfire disaster known as the Big Blowup of 1910 destroyed 3 million acres overall, but what impact did it have on our local communities? Although no one in the Flathead Valley were among the 85 killed, the area endured its share of the suffering in charred forests and burned homesteads.

In fact, the origins of the Big Blowup started back on April 29 right in Whitefish's backyard — in the Blackfeet National Forest (whose 2 million acres were later divided between the Kootenai and Flathead national forests).

Throughout the summer of 1910, wildfires blazed across the Northwest Rockies, the majority caused by manmade sources, such as railroad operations, slash burning or "hobo" fires. Then on Aug. 20, hurricane-force winds and dry conditions caused nearly 3,000 smaller wildfires to spread, often as massive crown fires raging across Montana, Idaho and Washington. The Forest Service lacked the planning, staff, equipment and communication to fight a blaze of this scale, which eventually was doused by fall rain and cooler temperatures.

Glacier National Park, in its first year of existence, had no plan and no budget for fire protection and lost 19,000 acres. As the saying goes, "fire breeds fire," and some historians estimate that the probability of fires doubled in the areas burned in 1910 because of the weakened condition of the ecosystem. Statistics prove that point — in the decade beginning in 1910, the Flathead National Forest lost 1.8 million acres to wildfire.

Ed Lieser, a Type I fire behavior analyst and Whitefish resident says large fires are common every century or two.

"Since we have chosen to live in a landscape that evolved with fire, we must understand our local environment and the role that fire plays," he said. "Generally speaking, fires in the northern Flathead Valley burn every 100 to 200 years. In addition, most of the fires that burn are high-intensity, forest-replacement type fires.

Much of the Flathead Valley burned in the fires of 1910 and are in a condition to burn again, he said.

"With the Moose Creek Fire of 2001 and the Robert, Wedge, and Blackfoot fires of 2003, we have seen wildfires substantially change the landscape of the North Fork of the Flathead and the South Fork of the Flathead River — and not because it was allowed to burn," he said. "Aggressive efforts by local, state and federal firefighters could not contain those fires initially."

Back in 1910, a typical forest guard might be expected to oversee 120,000 acres or more of dense forests. When rangers spotted smoke, they had to travel (often bushwhack) such a distance to reach the fire that it would already have grown substantially beyond their capacity to contain it. These remote fires, generally caused by lightning strikes in tinder-dry forests, caused most of the damage in the Flathead and Blackfeet national forests during the Big Blowup.

According to H.H. Chapman, an eyewitness to the 1910 fire in the Flathead area, "These (lightning-caused) fires, on the day of the great wind, swept down on the protected areas in solid fronts miles in extent and destroyed the works of weeks of fighting."

To fight the 1910 blaze, the Montana state forester rolled out Kalispell's two militia companies under his jurisdiction. Three Army companies were dispatched to help Forest Service crews fight Flathead fires at South Fork, Middle Fork at Stanton Lake and Glacier National Park. Local settlers also pitched in as firefighters, even as their own homesteads were threatened and burned.

The extensive damage of the Big Blowup of 1910 served as a wake-up call to the Forest Service. Fire prevention has become a much higher priority, especially as the number of acres under its management has grown with the expansion of the national park and forest system.

Improved communication and transportation make fighting fires much easier than in 1910, and there have been significant advances in fire-fighting organization and techniques, as well as in fire-fighting equipment. Still, manpower for fighting fires remains a limited resource, a reminder to citizens that Smokey Bear says, "Only you can prevent forest fires!"

"Although these areas burned with a vengeance during the Big Blowup, it was the type of fire with which the forests of the Flathead have evolved," Lieser said. "In the absence of active intervention by landowners and land managers, wildfire is a natural occurrence that can change the landscapes that we enjoy and call our home. That's why we all have the responsibility to make our local environment fire-safe."

For more information, visit online at www.wafsc.com and www.foresthistory.org.