The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

Palouser is the Sahaptin Indian name for a specific type of wind in the American West. On the afternoon of August 20, a Palouser “lifted the red dirt of the hills and slammed into the forests—not as a gust or an episodic blow, but as a battering ram of forced air” (154). Thousands of small fires combine to form one enormous mass of fire spanning multiple states: “Every headwall, every dead end of a canyon, every narrow valley served as a chimney, compressing the fire-laden air into funnels of flame” (155). The blaze exists in its own weather system and forms a wall moving at 50 miles per hour through the forest, “a firestorm of hurricane-force winds, in excess of 80 miles an hour” (156). 

Pulaski has the fires in his section of the forest under control when the Palouser winds begin to blow, an unstoppable force. When Weigle sees fire whirls—violent downdrafts with outer rings of updraft that can reach 2,000 degrees—he knows Wallace is doomed. He races to evacuate the town, but stops to save a woman and her child. After he ensures their safety, he heads back towards Wallace, but “now the fire was in front of him, big downed timbers engulfed by tongues of flame across the dirt road. He could descend no more” (161). To survive, Weigle must quickly duck into a mining hole, but doing so means he can’t evacuate Wallace.

Pressed to act without Weigle, the mayor of Wallace orders the troops to begin evacuating women and children. People fill the streets, “some fleeing for the river, intending to wait out the fire in the shallows, others riding horses and carriages straight out of town, unsure of whether they were heading into the fire or not” (162). They have mere moments to decide which of their belongings to save. Fire fighters realize their hoses and buckets of water are useless.

The bridge between Wallace and the Sisters of Providence hospital collapses, engulfed in flame. About two dozen patients are now isolated from the evacuation effort. Pulaski returns to the blaze to find his crews scattered, in panic, and retreating. He convinces some to hold together and make a run for Wallace. En route, those who fall behind are engulfed in flame. Before they reach Wallace, they run “headlong into the maw of the firestorm” (165). They are trapped. Pulaski shepherds his crew to a mine tunnel about a mile away and forces them inside. The tunnel quickly heats as fire sucks cold air from the tunnel, removing oxygen with it. Pulaski creates a cloth filter to preserve oxygen, but it catches fire. The crew in the tunnel panics. Pulaski burns his skin, eyes, and hair protecting the men in the cave. Egan elaborates: “He could not see, not just to the entrance, but anywhere. He was blind. The flames had taken his sight. Pulaski fell back to the floor of this coffin of crying men and dying horses, fell to the ground, unconscious” (168).

Bruno and Viettone are in a group sheltering in shallow water. When burning trees begin falling on men, Bruno and Viettone make a run for a homesteader’s ranch, along with five other men. The ranch has a pit that can hold no more than three men. All seven squeeze in.

In his mine hole, Weigle struggles to breathe. He decides to brave the fire rather than suffocate in the tunnel. He soaks his clothing in a puddle, holds a wet hat over his face, and bolts through the fire towards Wallace. He arrives in Wallace at two o’clock in the morning having sustained burns across his body. He heads straight to Forest Service headquarters and begins rescue efforts for rangers.

About three million acres are burning. By Saturday night, more than 500 firefighters are missing and presumed dead. Flames consume Wallace. The Buffalo Soldiers ensure an orderly evacuation, often preventing men from shoving women and children off the trains to obtain a spot. They empty the jail of prisoners, who now work fighting fires. Senator Heyburn’s property in Wallace burns as evacuation trains scream away from the town.

The hospital sits isolated. As trees near the hospital burst into flames, nuns evacuate patients into coal cars and a caboose on a small branch line on their side of the river, their only hope for survival. Their choice is to “flee into the heart of the burning forest at night, on a line that might well plunge into ravines of flame, or stay and cook inside the hospital” (177). They opt for a chance on the train.

After five hours in the mining tunnel, Pulaski’s men stir and move towards the entrance (178). Pulaski revives, exits with his crew, and assesses the damage. Five of his men and two horses are dead, but 41 survived. They trudge on bare, blistered feet down the mountain towards Wallace. Pulaski cannot see out of one eye and the other is blurry; his face, hands, and other parts of his body are seared.

Bruno and Viettone burn alive with five other men, in the homesteader’s pit. Wind topples surrounding trees, which then ignite. One large tree falls on the pit and traps the men inside as they burn to death. Their presence in the pit is deduced from a patchwork of reports and recollections from other firefighters. Grogan, the elderly Irish cook, burns to death making a brave stand against the fire while others in his crew run for safety. Another opts to shoot himself in the head rather than burn alive.