The Big Burn

by Jeanette Ingold

  From so high up he could hear that odd singing sound more clearly. Or maybe, he thought, the sound wasn't so much like singing as like water tumbling over rocks and splattering into a pool.

  A sudden charge of wind threw Jarrett off balance, and he had to cling with both arms to keep from falling. Then, taking a more determined hold on the tree trunk, he leaned out for another look.

  Something on fire fell in front of him—a brand at least a foot long dropping through the tree.

  Where had it come from? Jarrett had barely thought the question when the odd, soft noises he'd been hearing loudened into a sound more like the rush of river rapids. An instant later the noise became a waterfall-like roar so loud Jarrett could feel its force.

  And then, out there in the distance, the pink spread from sky to ground, became a pink-and-red-and-bronze mass of color billowing up in the southwest and running toward him. Sticks appeared to be tumbling through the air before it.

  Then Jarrett realized they were too far away to be sticks. My god, he thought, those are trees.

  He plunged down from his perch, slipping limb to limb with just enough hold to keep from free-falling. As he descended he caught more glimpses of that pink hell of fire coming at him. It seemed to be jumping ahead of itself, sending great gobs of flame flying through the air, setting afire trees that were great distances apart.

  The wind hit again just as Jarrett reached the ground. Wind so hard it threw him from his feet.

  The men! The kid! He had to warn them. Sheltered as they were, they wouldn't know what was coming.

  He almost flew down the mountain, the wind pushing on his back.

  As he ran he planned what to do. They could dig burrows to lie down in, use what was left of their water to wet down their clothes.

  ***

  As Jarrett gasped out news of what he'd seen, the others stared at him more puzzled than alarmed. "A crown fire, more than that coming at us! We've got to dig..." Thunderous wind cut off his words. Jarrett staggered back as the gale hit him, and the men around him swayed and whipped about like saplings. He saw Mr. Reese scream, but the sound of the scream got buried in the wind's roar. "We've got to dig burrows," Jarrett shouted. "Burrows."

  Henry, eyes wide and mouth open, pointed to the high end of the burn. Jarrett spun and saw it was all on fire again, the unburned tops of the trees ablaze and flames tearing along the ground.

  They'd never survive where they were. Fighting not to panic, he thought of Elway's saying, You can handle what you have to.

  With fire above and on both sides, all he could do was try to get them to shelter in the gulch bottom and hope the shallow water running through it would save them. Samuel had said, Whatever you do, don't get trapped in some gully. But sure death lay everywhere else.

  "This way," he shouted, and pulling Mr. Reese behind him, he plunged down slope, turning just long enough to see that the others were following. They tore along, running, tumbling. Somehow the little group stayed together as Vito or Angio, Henry or Rolling Joe helped with Mr. Reese.

  Down and down they went, dodging as a tree rolled past, its roots scything through the air and its huge trunk snapping into pieces the smaller trees it hit. Fire chased at their heels.

  Jarrett saw Angio yell when flying embers set his shirt afire. He saw Vito throw Angio to the ground and smother the flames. Then the two men were on their feet again, running.

  Finally they reached the sheer rockslide that Jarrett had walked around when he'd gotten water that morning. The creek hugged its base, and beyond it the gulch widened somewhat. Wedging up the mountainside opposite, a blackened V studded with small trees showed where fire had burned some other year.

  They ran down and around the stony expanse and threw themselves into the water. Jarrett lay there for a moment before forcing himself back on his feet. He pulled and yelled at the others to get up, and then he led them, stumbling and terrified, to a position directly beneath the slide. "Lie down as close to the rocks and as deep in the water as you can get," he shouted, although he knew no one could hear.

  He took off his wet shirt and went from person to person to show them all that they should do the same, so they'd have something to shield their faces with.

  Rolling Joe was taking care of Mr. Reese, and Angio and Vito had found water deep enough that they could lie with just their faces breaking the surface, their foreheads and eyes molded by wet flannel. Angio had Henry by the hand and was checking that the boy's face was protected. By now, Jarrett could hear the roar of the fire itself as it rushed into the narrow canyon.

  A punch of wind knocked him down and almost tore his shirt from his hands. He pulled it over his head and wiggled into the creek bed.

  The fire's noise bouncing off canyon walls made a din too loud for the water covering Jarrett's ears to muffle. He shut his eyes and then reopened them, and through the coarse weave of cloth he saw the air turn orange.

  West of Wallace

  August 20, Evening

  Samuel Logan urged Thistle up a rise, hoping to get a better idea of what was going on. The wind was picking up unbelievably fast, blowing first one way and then another, and before the forest had blocked his view, he'd seen a mushrooming smoke column darken the fearsome mustard sky.

  He wasn't used to Thistle balking or to Boone sticking close to the horse's legs. His animals' behavior added to the urgency he felt.

  Then they broke above the tree line. Thistle crested the hill, and Samuel got his first look at a wave of fire that appeared as wide as the horizon. It was sweeping toward him, a towering, curling overhang of flame. He had never seen anything like it. Never imagined anything like it.

  Kicking Thistle into a run back down the rough forest trail, Samuel raced to the crew he'd taken over. He reached his men just as Hank Sickles walked into camp.

  "Headquarters says I'm yours to command, want me or not," Hank began, but then his grin faded at the desperate expression on Samuel's face.

  Quickly Samuel described the inferno bearing down on their camp. "I'm going to set backfires above a rock outcropping I spotted and hope that slows the fire down long enough to let us get out. Right now, the rest of you wet down your clothes and blankets, take your canteens, and run. I'll catch up."

  Most rushed to obey, but Hank shook his head. "I'm going with you. You'll need help."

  Samuel locked eyes with his good friend. "I stand a chance up there," he said, "and some luck with the backfires might just buy a chance for these men. But not if they got to make it out alone. There's not a woodsman among them."

  He watched Hank start to argue and then think better of it.

  He's remembering he's got a wife and kids, and I've neither, Samuel thought.

  Hank gave a quick nod. "Then I'll do my best," he said. "But if you haven't caught up by the time I've got everybody safe, I'm coming back."

  "Fair enough," Samuel told him. He briefly considered asking Hank to take a message back to Jarrett for him: tell his brother he was proud of him.

  Except, that would seem like tempting fate—his or Jarrett's, he wasn't sure which. And as for sending word to Celia—Hank didn't even know who she was, and there wasn't time to tell him.

  "Fair enough," Samuel repeated. "But if we don't get moving, we're going to give that fire enough time to walk in on us." He reached for Thistle. "And stop worrying! I'd be a poor ranger if I couldn't handle a little backfire."

  Then he rode to meet the front, knowing he hadn't fooled his friend for one moment.

  North of the St. Joe River

  August 20, Evening

  "What the hell is going on?" someone asked.

  "I wish I knew," Elway answered. "If it gets any darker, we're gonna wish we had lanterns to show us the way back."

  He and the others were trudging up a narrow trail to their fire camp, where they should find supper waiting. He ought to be hungry enough, after a long day patrolling fire trenches, but he didn't seem to have any appetite.

  The way his
heart was pounding and his breath hard to catch, he wondered if something was wrong with him. He was getting too old to push himself so hard day after day. Maybe after this fire season ended, he'd start looking for work that didn't take so much muscle and lung. Though what that would be, he didn't know. Swinging a logger's ax, slamming a sledgehammer against a miner's drill, breaking rock for railway bed—when had he ever learned a job that didn't start with muscle and end with aching, sweaty exhaustion?

  He wished he'd told young Jarrett to set himself up so people would have a use for what he knew, instead of just for the labor he could put out. Maybe once this fire season ended, Elway would find the kid and tell him just that That if Jarrett wanted to become more than an old fire bum, he ought to get himself some schooling.

  One of the men walking behind Elway said, "At least the wretched wind is letting up."

  Elway, who'd been lost in his thoughts, realized it was true. The wind that had been pushing at them all afternoon had disappeared into a moment of odd calm. And then it whipped again, but from the other direction, and its rush left Elway gasping for breath.

  Maybe some water, he thought tilting his head back to swig from his canteen. What was going on? The air around him felt ready to explode. And what was that he was hearing? Rolling thunder?

  An instant later he placed the sound. He'd heard it once before, when a fire he'd been working had blown up.

  He turned to warn the men behind him, but they were flailing away at a shower of glowing bits. And then, beyond them, on the left, he saw a line of trees explode into flame. For a moment he halted, too surprised to move. Then another wall of fire torched up on the slope opposite and still another broke out far below, in the bottom of the overgrown canyon.

  Running pell-mell with the others, he tore up the trail in the only direction not blocked by the growing inferno. The conflagration filled his eyes with scorching smoke and his lungs with choking gases and his ears with the pops and crackles of branches burning and tree trunks snapping.

  A flaming log rolled down the slope, and he turned in time to see it sweep one of the men into the burning chasm. Elway paused, realized the man was beyond reach, and resumed running.

  The heat on his back became intolerable, and when he glanced over his shoulder again he saw that the flames were advancing much faster than he and the others were moving up the trail. The fire would overtake them in minutes, maybe sooner, if they didn't somehow stop it.

  With no place to retreat to, Elway and the men with him turned to meet the pounding blaze head-on. He rammed his shovel under a chunk of burning wood and heaved it into the wild flames. He saw the others fan out to each side as they all desperately tried to hold a line that they might live behind. But the flames burned too hot and too close, and moment by moment the men were forced into an ever tighter knot.

  One man broke, running headlong into the raging front.

  "No!" Elway shouted.

  Elway saw another man, maybe a dozen feet away, collapse as his clothes burst into flames. The handle of the man's pickax, dropped to the burning ground, caught fire.

  Elway had one more fleeting thought of telling Jarrett to fear the fire that couldn't be fought This is the fire I was talking about.

  FIELD NOTES

  As the flames of the gnat blowup swept across Idaho and into Montana, gathering strength and speed and size, the people caught before them ran to whatever shelter they could find. Railroad tunnels, mine adits, creek beds, caves, storage pits, old burns, gravel bars—whatever was at hand; whatever they could get to. Wherever they could make a stand; wherever they might be safe until the flames had swept by.

  On the west fork of the Big Creek, above the St. Joe, Lee Hollingshead led most of his crew to a previously burned area, while nineteen of his terrified men ran to a tiny cabin used to station packhorses.

  Men from the John Bell crew on the middle fork took refuge in a homestead clearing, where some of them lay down in a stream and others crammed into a root cellar.

  On Setzer Creek, William Rock led his men to a part of the forest that had been burned the day before; twenty-eight men from Ralph Debitt's crew fled to the next drainage. The rest of Debitt's men had heeded a warning he'd sent earlier that they should return to Avery, but those twenty-eight had chosen to ignore it.

  West of Placer Creek, Ed Pulaski gathered about forty men who'd been cut off by the flames and eventually got them into a mining tunnel that had a small stream running through it. He dipped water to throw on the burning timbers of the entrance, and he held back at pinpoint those who became so frightened that they tried to bolt.

  On Stevens Peak, James Danielson had his men burn over a field of bear grass, and when the flames of the blowup began to reburn what they'd just blackened, they pulled blankets over themselves and waited.

  S. M. Taylor, on the Bullion fire, took men into a mine.

  Joe Halm and his crew sought refuge on a sandbar at the mouth of a creek miles southeast of Avery.

  Will Morris led his men on a nighttime fight from their Graham Creek camp. They hiked through burning forests until they'd put enough miles behind them that he thought it was safe for them to sleep.

  And other rangers across hundreds of square miles of rugged wilderness also did their best to keep alive their crews and anyone else they happened to be with.

  The fires ravaged parts of forest after forest—the Clearwater, the Pend Oreille, and the Nezperce; the Cabinet, the Kaniksu, the Koote-nai, and the Lolo; some of Glacier National Park—but no place suffered more than did the country of the Coeur d'Alene and St. Joe.

  No place saw more people die.

  Official counts would put the death toll from the blowup at about eighty-seven, but that's a number based on bodies found and people known to be lost. Certainly a true count would be higher. Regardless of the total, the majority—seventy-five at least—died on the Coeur d'Alene. Most were firefighters, untrained temporaries caught when their jobs turned deadly.

  Who they were—where they were—what had happened to each man and to all the crews: It would be days before anyone would know the greater part of that.

  Wallace

  August 20, Evening

  Lizbeth returned to the Forest Service office Saturday evening in time to hear someone demand to see Supervisor Weigle. The supervisor, the person got told, still hadn't returned and word hadn't come in where he was. "Though with Placer Creek blown up," Mr. Polson said, "I hope to God he's found shelter. That they all have. There are so many..."

  Placer Creek blown up, Lizbeth thought. Cel's and my place really is gone. The information seemed unimportant. Because she'd already known it? Because it was unimportant compared with the people who were caught in the fires.

  "Things are burning up all over..." Mr. Polson looked at Lizbeth a moment before seeming to recognize her. "I'm sorry about your place," he said. "I wish I could take time to talk now."

  The evacuation bell began to ring, and Lizbeth was swept up in a rush outside.

  She saw that smoke no longer hid the mountains southwest of town. Now, flames sharply outlined them.

  ***

  Within minutes, as the bell continued clanging and trains sounded their whistles, people began hurrying to the stations. They came first in straggling groups, mothers pulling along children, and then in a swelling throng.

  Lizbeth tried to think what to do—her aunt had said she might walk down to check on Philly and Trenton, so Celia might already be in town. But Lizbeth couldn't go looking for her and go after Mrs. Marston at the same time. And of the two, Celia was the more able to take care of herself.

  Running against the crowd, Lizbeth hurried to the hillside stairs and climbed them as quickly as possible, squeezing past those coming down. She passed a man packing things into a hole dug in a rose bed while a woman struggled to replace them with items of her own choosing. She passed a young girl frantically calling, "Duke!"

  At the boardinghouse Lizbeth saw that Mrs. Marston had gotte
n herself, creaky bones and all, up onto the roof and was watering it down with her garden hose. "The evacuation trains are going to leave!" Lizbeth yelled, hoping she could be heard over the fierce wind. "You've got to get on board!"

  She saw Mrs. Marston start to shout an answer and then lose her balance and slide down the steeply pitched roof into shrubbery. Lizbeth ran to her.

  Mrs. Marston, her face pale, ordered, "Help me up," but then her legs wouldn't support her weight. "What an old fool I am," she said, "hurting myself at a time like this! Lizbeth, you take that hose and get up where I was. Only, you be careful..."

  "We've got to get you help," Lizbeth said. "And get you on an evacuation train."

  "Nonsense," Mrs. Marston said. "I'm not leaving my home."

  Exasperated, Lizbeth said, "You told me no place is worth dying for. Didn't you mean it?"

  "I meant it for you. Not for me!" Mrs. Marston paused, looking at her house as though she was seeing more than white clapboard and a front window with stained glass panes. She nodded. "You're right, of course." Then her face turned white as the shock of her fall set in.

  ***

  A next-door neighbor was too busy corralling children to help, but Mr. Denbury, the elderly bachelor who lived across the street, swept clothes off the seat of his one-horse buggy. Between him and Lizbeth they got Mrs. Marston onto it, and Mr. Denbury started for town. There wasn't room for Lizbeth to ride with them, but since the buggy was slowed by the crowd in the street, she was able to keep up with them on foot.

  They reached the flat and were headed for the Northern Pacific station when Mr. Denbury called to her that Mrs. Marston had lost consciousness. "She needs carrying to the hospital!" he shouted, pulling his horse into a turn.

  And then someone ran by and knocked Lizbeth down, and by the time she'd scrambled to her feet, wagons and hurrying people hid the buggy from her. And then she couldn't find it again.