Aug 20 2009
End of the “Big Blow Up”
There are some areas of our country that always end up with forest fires during the summer months. The combination of high heat and lack of rain causes the forest floors to become tinder boxes that fuel the ferocious appetites of a fire gone wild.
It was on this day in history, August 20, 1910, that the “big blow up” for forest fires in Idaho finally came to an end. A record dry August fueled 1,736 fires which burned thee million acres destroying six billion board feet of timber. The fires claimed the lives of 85 individuals, 78 of which were firefighters, and the fire consumed the entire town of Wallace. The smoke spread a third of the way around the world and produced some dark days in the U.S. and Canada. These forest fires prompted the federal fire protection laws. Data from This Day in Weather History.
