American experience: The big burn is a movie that tells a story about a huge wildfire that raged through the Northern Rockies during the year 1910. The wildfire consumed large chunks of land spanning over three million acres.
In the year 1905, some fresh graduates from Yale Forestry School were posted to the West frontier towns under Gifford Pinchot, who was the founder of the forest and was serving as the chief of the U.S. Forest Service. The employees were faced with the huge task of taking care of the large forests in the Northern Rockies. One of the employees under Gifford Pinchot was William Greely, who was made to be in charge of twenty nine million acres of the forest covering Idaho, Montana and South Dakota. Greely had about one hundred and sixty rangers under him and each was made responsible for approximately three hundred square miles of the forest. However, Greely and his compatriots were not in good terms with the local natives who did not like intrusion by the federal government.
Gifford Pinchot and his men faced the threat of job cuts due to pressure for timber and mining cartels but he fought hard against the political pressure. Pinchot enjoyed some relative calm under President Roosevelt. When President William took office in 1909, the two did not enjoy good relations and Pinchot was fired in 19010. The preceding two years were dominated by dry spells but the Forest Service was faced with the severity of the drought in 1910. In April, huge fires started spontaneously and the rangers were ill-equipped to tackle the wildfire.
In July, 1910, more violent fires engulfed the forests and on twentieth August, the ‘Big Burn’ occurred with the stormy winds fanning the wildfires to form a mammoth blaze. The huge wildfire engulfed the forest for about thirty six hours and destroyed millions of acres of the forest land. President Taft eventually sent a large contingent of able-bodied people including convicted criminals from jail to try manage the damage caused by the wildfire.
When the fire was finally put under control, three million acres of forest had had been completely destroyed with timber worth billions of dollars lost. A large number of casualties were reported with more than seventy eight fire fighter perishing while many others were injured and others lost their homes.
Reference
The Big Burn. American Experience at Public Broadcasting Service, 2015
