The Big Burn: The Northwest's Great Forest Fire of 1910

by Don Miller, Stan Cohen

A good case could be made for predicting a calamitous forest fire that would ravage the relatively unscathed, lush timber stands of the Northwest. Some people shrugged and lamented that one could never predict much of the future. But regardless of what people thought, 1910 was to be the year of what some termed the "big blowup" of the "big burn," or the "time when the mountains roared."



A series of 1,736 fires ravaged three million acres and killed eighty-five people. With abnormally low amounts of precipitation and soaring high temperatures, disaster threatened imminently, and the undermanned, underequipped national forest service did not help the situation.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1978

Reviews

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an easily readable book about the wild land fires of 1910 in MT & ID that burned 3 million acres. It contains many period pictures and some lines of text describing individual experiences. Some letters are also copied, leaving a first person experience. It is not the Egan authored book of the same name but with no pictures, as it does not talk much about the politics. The chapters are about the fire, the towns that burned and the fire's legacy in the 70 plus fire fighters who gave their lives. The fire's impact is described in mostly local terms. I found the autographed book at the Missoula smoke jumper museum.

[Estee Hull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting story behind this book, I was on vacation and right before I went on vacation my dad had grounded me from reading books for two weeks, and so my grandma she bought this book at a store and she had me read this out loud to her in the car while we are traveling and I read it and there is a few diary and journal entries and I did this with an accent. And then when I was done with the book I realized that I was grounded from reading books. So when I got back I told my dad. And my grandma and my mom said that if that is my dad punish me then they would have me read it to my dad for punishment .

This book is really cool book though I I was reading it to my grandma and I found a whole bunch of interesting facts about the big burn of 1910 Happened in Idaho and Montana and it burned over 3 million acres . Had a lot of pictures to their really cool pictures and I had a signed copy of the book.