1910 Fire Commemoration Information Site

Region One On-line Exhibit

Joseph B. Halm & R.H. McKay

Halm and McKay were both Forest Service employees who played an integral part in photographing the aftermath of the 1910 fires. In fact McKay was hired for this specific purpose.

Halm was a Forest Ranger and Deputy Supervisor on the Coeur d’Alene National Forest during the tragedy. He actively took part in fighting the fires in his district. Halm retired from the Forest Service in 1945.

Halm's Retirement News Release

Allen's Camp - All Safe

(List of names of accounted for people.)

Edward Pulaski page

Elers Koch

Elers Koch began working for the Forest Service in 1903 and spent the next 40 years with the agency. He was supervisor of the Lolo National Forest during the 1910 fires and later wrote an account of the disaster (see History of the 1910 Fires in Idaho and Western Montana). Koch later went on to become assistant Regional Forester for the Northern Region. He retired from the Forest Service in 1943.

Koch's Retirement News Release

"A forester in the Northwest dates the events of his life by the fire years. The 1910, 1917, 1919, 1926 and 1931 fire seasons each have a character of their own, and in each year are individual fire campaigns which the forester remembers as the soldier remembers the separate engagements of the war."

– Elers Koch, Lolo National Forest Supervisor, 1942

Photo of Elers Koch on his horse.

F.A. Silcox

Silcox first became involved with the Forest Service in the summer of 1904 as a student worker. He acted as Inspector and Associate District Forester in the Northern Region from 1906 to 1911, first under E. A. Sherman and then under W. B. Greeley. He later went on to become District Forester from 1911 to 1917.

W.B.Greeley

W. B. Greeley was the Chief Forester from 1908 to 1911 of what is today the Northern Region. He later went on to become the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

"The forests staggered, rocked, exploded and then shriveled under the holocaust. Great red balls of fire rolled up the mountainsides. Crown fires, from one to 10 miles wide, streaked with yellow and purple and scarlet, raced through treetops 150 feet from the ground. Bloated bubbles of gas burst murderously into forked and greedy flames.

"The heat of the fire and the masses of flaming gas created whirlwinds that mowed down mile-wide swaths of pine and fir and cedar in advance of the flames. And behind all this, advancing ominously and steadily, destroying everything in its path - the ground fire.

"Fire brands the size of a man's arm were blasted down in the streets of towns 50 miles from the nearest fire line. The sun was completely obscured in Billings, 500 miles away from the main path of the fire. Remarkable atmospheric disturbances were felt all over the country. While United States Weather Forecaster Brandenburg in Denver watched his thermometer, the temperature dropped 19 degrees in 10 minutes, and at 5 o'clock, a 42 mile-an-hour gale swept Denver, enveloping it in a pall of smoke from the Idaho-Montana fires, 800 miles distant. At Cheyenne, Wyoming, the thermometer registered 38, the lowest reported on the weather map.

"You can't outrun wind and fire that are traveling 70 miles an hour. You can't hide when you are entirely surrounded by red-hot color. You can't see when it's pitch black in the afternoon. There were men who went stark raving crazy, men who flung themselves into the on-rushing flames, men who shot themselves.

"It was the Big Blowup!"