Largest Fire in US History!

[Luissa]

If go to the link there is an article from today's paper, along with links to the other stories in the series, along with a video. The fire burned 3 million acres in Idaho and Montana, 100 years ago. It has been pretty interesting to read.

Flame and Ruin: The fires of 1910 - Spokesman.com

A forest the size of Connecticut was exploding in a fearsome whoosh – generating, with fire and oxygen, its own tornadoes and cyclones. One survivor called it “the sound of a thousand trains rushing over a thousand steel trestles.” Another said it could be compared only to the “roar of Niagara Falls.”

The noise was a deafening combination of 60 mph gales, colossal fire-driven updrafts, and the clamor of hundreds of trees cracking, snapping and slamming against earth. One witness said it sounded like being in the midst of “heavy cannonading.”

Some came to call it The Big Blowup. Others called it the Big Burn. By any name, it was easily the biggest forest fire in the Inland Northwest’s history – actually the biggest forest fire in U.S. history.