Old Missoula

“Big Smoke” – 2 Killed in Miller Creek Forest Fire – 1937

Another Forest Fire

By The Forest Ranger

When on July 14, 1937, the Miller Creek forest fire on the Lolo National Forest snuffed out two human lives, it immediately made headlines in newspapers throughout the land.[1] Here was sensational suffering, devastating waste, action, danger, excitement, and a battle royal – hundreds of stories rolled into one.

There was little more than a statement of facts in the story below the headlines, however. Reiterated facts of how an overheated tractor was believed to have been the cause, how the two sawyers had been trapped by the rushing flames, how 70 men were trying to beat out the flames, and how the smoke was rolling over the mountain in plain view of resident Missoulians.

On top of Miller peak in the path of the fire was a lookout tower. Smoke and flying embers swirled wildly around it, but by some freakish chance it was saved – as was the life of the guard who manned it.

It was not until 9 o’clock the second night that I finally unrolled a kapok bed a hundred yards below the lookout and stretched out on the hard ground hoping to sleep. All around me up and down the trail scores of other men were resting. Some were snoring, some coughing, one or two talking fitfully in their sleep.

A short distance below were the lights of camp. Cooks and flunkies were making lunches – three sandwiches and a can of fruit to the sack. Breakfast was also being prepared.

The acrid odor of drift smoke was so strong on top of the ridge that I had trouble breathing. A full moon lay on the eastern horizon, beautifully mellowed by the haze. A dull ache in my knees, the smoke and gnats, made sleep slow in coming.

A Load of Grub.

About midnight the pack-string brought up a load of grub. It was close quarters around the cook tent and there was trouble with the mules – men were shouting and swearing as the mules crashed over the woodpile. I sat up and saw some of the fire-fighters struggling out of kapoks to escape the frightened animals.[2]

Breakfast was served at 3:30 a.m. and by 4 the crews were again on the trail. Our sector of line was below camp. The main fire had crossed the ridge to the left. We had scores of scattered spot fires to control.

After spacing the men along the line I dropped down the hill scouting for undiscovered spot fires and inspecting those we had so long and laboriously battled on the day before.

As I hiked down the slope a vesper sparrow darted out of the grass in front of my foot and, looking down, I saw her soft nest and four gray eggs mottled brown cleverly concealed under an overhanging bush. The area around the nest had not been burned and someone – some one of those calloused, hard-bitten fire-fighters in my crew – had carefully built a trench around it.

Following the hard-won fire line down the precipitous mountainside for another mile I came to a stand of mature yellow pine. The orange bark was black and charred. The mighty tops were seared rust color. Smoke rolled up from the fire in their pitchy roots. All around, the ground, once covered with a soil-protecting coat of soft brown needles, was now a mass of feathery ash from one to two inches deep.

Behind a mask of sweat streaked grime I recognized the crew boss of the gang working below us. Some of his men were sawing and falling the ruined monarchs – cutting the fire from their mighty hearts.

He looked at me and grinned. “You out for some atmosphere?” There was a weary grimness in his greeting.

“Yeah,” I answered. His legs were even blacker than mine. My shirt was specked with small burned holes – his was ripped from shoulder to shoulder.

Going back up the hill I met a CCC boy. Close to the smoke he was picking at, I saw a snowshoe rabbit.

“He won’t go away, the boy said. “He can’t, because his feet are burned. I’m taking him in to the doctor.”

On the third afternoon another strong wind hit the slope and the little smoldering fires burst into flames. About 4 o’clock I heard someone shout frantically off to the side of the trench below me. Soon after, a growing column of smoke appeared.

Another Fire.

It was another newly discovered spot fire on the loose. Whipped by the unreasonable wind the flames cracked hungrily racing uphill through the green huckleberry bushes below the small trees.

Realizing an emergency, I ran down the hill to an opening above the rising smoke. Four other firefighters were already there. After estimating the hazard of a frontal approach we went on down. When we arrived a crew of men was working up from the bottom on both sides of the fire, hoping to pinch it out. Taking turns in the smoke and terrific heat we cut a trench across the top. The fire jumped across. Another trench was built, and again it went across. There was a wild fight to keep it out of the crowns for ahead lay hundreds of acres of green timber. For a moment the wind shifted and momentarily died. Working frenziedly during the lull, a third trench was thrown across and the fire was stopped.

Just Another Big Smoke.

To the man on the street reading the headlines, the Miller Creek fire was just another big smoke – more interesting than some because human lives were lost, less interesting because it was not as large as many others.

Behind the scenes of this fire and every other fire caused by man’s unintentional acts of carelessness, however, thinking citizens and taxpayers, as well as foresters and outdoorsmen, will readily appreciate a feeling of loss far deeper than the average reader’s detached regret.

Material losses alone on the Miller Creek fire were tremendous. In addition to two human lives, a valuable logging operation was destroyed. Mature trees, the work of centuries, instead of supplying the community with a continuous source of revenue and watershed protection, went up in smoke. Where once the soil was rich in food and cover for wild life, nothing but a barren, eroding mountainside remains – an ugly scar on the scenic attractiveness of the country.
Add to this the necessary cost of sending 700 men to suppress such a fire and some small measure of the total public loss is apparent.

The sun is scorching hot on Miller mountain. Among the blackened snags, erratic whirlwinds are already toying with the dust-dry unprotected soil and over all a ghostly silence thunders the eternal question – Why?

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on August 1, 1937.

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The Miller Creek fire never made its way into the annals of the U.S. Forest Service’s notable conflagrations, and since the 2 young men killed in the fire were not government employees, their deaths never appeared in Forest Service casualty records. While 700 men reportedly fought this fire, the two victims were simply listed in news reports as sawyers for a local logging contractor. In fact, they were implicitly blamed for causing the fire in the first place. Although they were promptly identified in a small Missoulian article, little else was printed about them. One man, Van Sickles, lived in Missoula, while the other, Lee Coy, apparently had only recently moved to Missoula.

The Daily Missoulian noted them briefly in a front-page article on Friday, July 23: “The two, who burned to death as they ran down a mountain log trail in a vain attempt to reach safety, were Lee Coy and Roy Van Sickles, both in their early twenties. Forest workers found the bodies about 30 yards apart . . . We have investigated so far as possible,” said Mr. Myrick at base camp No. 1 Thursday, “and are fairly certain that a caterpillar engaged in working in the woods cast a spark from its exhaust pipe.” One thing not mentioned in the Myrick’s interview was whether the two men attempted to fight the fire on their own. At least one account stated the men ran an hour after the fire started. How this was determined was not revealed. Reporters who wrote the Missoulian articles apparently relied almost exclusively on Forest Service officials for their facts. No inquest was held into the deaths.

The ability of loggers to fight fires was mentioned more than once in articles about this fire, yet the two deceased men were not given credit for anything, except running to save their lives. The grizzly business of recovering their bodies was covered in an article on Friday, July 23, citing the steep terrain. Their bodies were then removed by the local coroner. Three other men were injured in the fire. Little mention of the suspect caterpillar was ever made again. Straddling the fine line between evaluating the behavior of hundreds of men who were quickly recruited to fight this fire, and the two men who tragically lost their lives, was not naturally part of the Daily Missoulian’s focus in 1937.

Strangely, no obituary for either of the dead men ever appeared in the Daily Missoulian.

A short notice about the men appeared in the Sunday Missoulian, July 25, 1937:

Private Funeral Rites For Two Fire Victims

“Private funeral services were held at 4 o’clock Saturday afternoon in the Stucky chapel for Lee Coy and Ray Van Sickle of East Missoula, victims of the Miller creek fire Wednesday afternoon. Coy is survived by his wife and four-month old daughter, who came by train from Miles City Friday, and Van Sickle is survived by his wife, who was in Missoula when the tragedy occurred.” [Sickle’s name is given in articles as both Roy and Ray]

Another short Daily Missoulian article on Wednesday, July 28, noted the following:

“Rumors that the two men killed on the Miller creek front last Wednesday afternoon were fire crew members were erroneous, headquarters declared. The two men were sawyers employed by a logging contractor.”

Legal liability for starting the fire was never discussed in initial accounts of the fire, and responsibility for the fire was never publicly stated. Obliquely, a caterpillar was deemed the culprit, while neither the owner, nor the operators appeared in legal jeopardy.

The contractor was not clearly identified in any of the initial articles, but his name did appear in a later article, when the two widows of the dead men filed for workman’s compensation later in October of 1937.

“In the petitions the women maintain their husbands were employes of Elmer Findell, Missoula sawmill man. The point to be determined, it is understood, is whether or not they were working for Mr. Findell at the time of the accident. Their cases were taken under advisement by Mr. Clements. It is understood that if the board holds the men were employed by Mr. Findell at the time of the accident, the women will be entitled to 400 weeks of compensation each.”

Elmer Findell had been a district Forest Ranger in the early days of the Forest Service. He later resigned and became a manager for the A.C.M. Company, and also for Clark’s Western Lumber Company. He ran a small sawmill in the Bitterroot and later leased and operated the Polleys Lumber Mill until it was sold to Western Lumber Company about 1936.

Questions regarding ownership of the property that was burned or destroyed in the fire were not addressed by the Daily Missoulian. One article vaguely stated that property belonging to 3 entities was involved; State, Federal and Northern Pacific.

Early the following year in 1938 an article in The Daily Missoulian noted that the two widows had forfeited their claims when they were remarried. The Coy child’s case was still pending.

It is noteworthy that one Miller Creek firefighter, John Ammerman, was temporarily released from jail in Missoula to join the effort. Serving a 90-day sentence for car theft he was released on Wednesday, July 21, and it was arranged that the time he spent firefighting would be deducted from his sentence.

Hiring and recruiting practices in conjunction with firefighters in those days was rag tag at best. As late as the 1950’s men were still occasionally recruited as firefighters directly from bars and off the streets of Missoula. The question of how the Forest Service managed to put 700 men on the Miller Creek fire in two days is interesting. Of the 700 men employed to fight the Miller Creek fire, it was noted in the Daily Missoulian that half of these men were released by Sunday. “Saturday morning 125 CCC workers from the St. Joe and Deer Lodge forests and from the Nine Mile camp came to Missoula and were returned to their camps, as well as 40 loggers from the Harper camps in the Bitter Root and 60 fire fighters hired in Missoula, all being released from front-line duty.”

Another Daily Missoulian article on Tuesday, July 27, reported that a group of firefighters came to Forest Service headquarters on Monday for their pay. “Pay-off to the men who performed valiant deeds on the Miller creek fire front came at Forest Service headquarters Monday morning, 100 men receiving from $15 to $21 for their work. They were the men recruited to hurriedly check the fast-spreading flames in addition to the Forest Service and CCC crews.”

Viewed from a distant perspective 80 years later, the Miller Creek fire was a sharp operation, where things got done quickly and efficiently. The resemblance to a military campaign was not surprising, especially with Headquarters men like Major Evan Kelley in charge as the Regional Forester. Food was delivered promptly; men and equipment were on hand pronto, and the fire was quickly contained. Unbelievably, the firefighters were paid within a matter of hours.

Yet accounts of the deaths were almost nonexistent, and what was presented was colored with an aspect of disdain since it appeared they were somehow responsible by operating a defective caterpillar. No official inquest of their deaths was held. Unfortunately, in choosing the wrong path of escape, they were funneled to their deaths when they followed a chute trail they probably made themselves while dragging logs off the mountain. Legally, the Forest Service may not have owed these two men anything, except perhaps a more complete story. Still, if they fought the fire in any way, a resourceful attorney might have made a case they were hence employed as government firefighters under agency law? Had they made their way down the mountain they would likely have been hired on the spot. Dozens of Harper loggers were later trucked in from the Bitter Root to fight the fire.

Local reporters were also remiss when they fell in step with the official line that the men responsible for the fire died almost of their own negligence. Scant information was ever presented about the 2 men killed. The first article above, written by The Forest Ranger, attempted to put a more human face on their deaths, but he had nothing to work with. As he noted, there was “little more than a statement of facts” available.

Esteemed ‘Headquarters’ Forest Service officials like Major Evan Kelley, Eldon H. Myrick and Albert C. Austin were proudly named when they quickly won the battle and saved citizens from what surely would have been costlier destruction. As it was, the holocaust was largely checked by a huge, efficient compliment of valiant firefighters who received less than $25 for their efforts.

Interestingly, Gifford Pinchot, the ‘father of modern forestry’ arrived in Missoula on August 2, 1937. He stated that “while we’re here we’re under the orders of Major Kelley. . . he’s our boss for the time we’re here.”

 

The Miller Creek fire was first reported in The Daily Missoulian on Thursday, July 22:

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Sweeping over the crest of a high wooded range, flames on a two-mile front raced before a steady wind Wednesday night along the Miller creek watershed, with nearly 300 men sweating in a frantic effort to check the roaring holocaust.

Described as the worst forest fire in this region this year, the Miller creek blaze was started at 3 o’clock Wednesday afternoon, according to forest officials, from the exhaust of a caterpillar engine. Deep dry duff on the ground and the tinder-like quality of Western Montana’s woods gave the flames ample fuel upon which to race ahead of the first fire-fighters on the scene, and steadily forged ahead of additional scores of men rushed by truck to Miller creek to combat the conflagration. Smoke from the blaze was visible from Missoula.

Four camps were established along the Miller creek front and men are being apportioned to the crews as they arrive by truck from various parts of Western Montana. Supervisor E. H. Myrick of the Lolo forest is directing the fight against the fire and Ranger Albert C. Austin is at the fire-front in charge of operations.

Help From Outside.

Calls were telephoned to outside points for men to help fight fires in this part of the state, the Miller creek fire being particularly in need of fighters. Butte was called last night from regional headquarters, instructions being given to send a Deer Lodge forest road crew of 25 men and a foreman by trucks to the Miller creek blaze, with orders to report to Ranger Austin at Camp Four, adjacent to Little Park creek.

Scores of men lined up three deep at the Forest Service warehouse on the north side of the Northern Pacific tracks on Rose avenue, and when regional headquarters received queries as to how many men were to be hired, the answer was “keep on hiring.” Lumberjacks, ace forest firefighters, were called from their logging work at Harper’s camp near Stevensville Wednesday evening to take places on the fire front.

Orders were placed Wednesday evening for a total of 375 men for the Miller creek fire. Three hundred men were scheduled to be at work last evening, but Forest Service officials were finding difficulty in obtaining all the men they needed.

One hundred men from Deep Creek CCC camp, 25 from the Lost Horse highway camp, and 25 from Hamilton were among the recruits.

All potential sources of manpower are being checked-up on by the officials.

On North Fork.

In addition to the Miller creek fire, the total acreage of which has not been reported, foresters had a new fire on the North Fork of the Flathead to contend with. Fire which started in a cabin, destroying the structure, spread into the forest, and 100 men were cutting and digging to hold it in Wednesday night. The fire had covered 250 acres at 6 o’clock in the evening.

Many Missoula residents, when they first saw the clouds of smoke rising above the ridge top and billowing eastward, thought that the fire was in Pattee canyon. Others had it that the flames were spreading in the Deer creek region, over the crest from Miller creek. Officials stated that the fire started in the Miller creek canyon 14 miles southeast of the city limits.

Two major fires were reported under control Wednesday, and a small one was extinguished Tuesday night, regional headquarters reported. The Warm Springs creek fire in the Powell ranger district was controlled, as was the blaze near Quinn’s Springs, west of here, and the O’Brien creek fire, a wee blaze compared to others, was put out entirely.

Almost exactly a thousand men were working in attempts to check fires in Region No. 1 Wednesday. There were 300 men on the Cabinet forest near Quinn’s Springs, 200 on the Powell district fire, 100 on the North Fork flare-up, and 375 on the raging Miller creek front, with possibility that more men would be added to the crews if they were available.

Western Montana’s forest areas are a potential furnace, officials declare, and they appeal to the public to be very careful when out in the woods.

Seventy-five logging men from the Woodworth camps expected Wednesday to control a fire burning in the timber stands where the A.C.M. is now operating in the upper Blackfoot, a blaze which caused some concern and considerable smoke Tuesday. It has burned from 75 to 80 acres, necessitating a call for the logging crews.

The Nezperce forest had two new fires, the Clearwater, St. Joe, Kaniksu and Gallatin one each, the latter caused by a careless smoker.

On Friday, July 23, The Daily Missoulian reported the Miller Creek fire with a huge headline and two photographs.

The photographs’ caption read as follows:

Above, a group of firefighters is shown waiting for chow at one of the camps established in the Miller creek region for the more than half-thousand men engaged in battling the blaze.

Below, left to right, are Richard Jette, Dillard Olsen, Donald Jette and Wilfred Peterson, who were removed from the path of the Miller creek flames by Ranger A. C. Austin, after he had been notified by the boy’s parents that they were camping in the fire zone, unaware of their danger.

Crews Gaining in Fight on Blaze

Three Fronts Are Still Dangerous Two Men Killed

More Than Half Thousand Men Battling Stubborn Miller Creek Flames, With One Side Checked and Trenched. Winds Are Main Cause of Concern Now. Bodies of Two Victims Brought to Missoula After Difficult Mountain Trip. At Least Three Are Injured.

Flames licked hungrily at Western Montana’s forest land Thursday as a crew of 533 workers battled a blaze which Wednesday afternoon claimed the lives of two young woods workers who were trapped in the wind-fed blaze at the head of Miller creek and caused injuries to three men.

Forest Service officials reported that the north side of the fire had been checked and trenched Thursday. But the northeast, east and south fronts are giving the firefighting crews trouble, with winds carrying sparks to cause spot fires beyond the main blaze.

The two, who burned to death as they ran down a mountain log trail in a vain attempt to reach safety, were Lee Coy and Roy Van Sickles, both in their early twenties. Forest workers found the bodies about 30 yards apart.

Recorded as a “class six,” or “explosive” fire, the blaze broke out in the heavily timbered country about 12 miles southeast of here Wednesday afternoon.

Eldon H. Myrick, Forest Service official, who is on hand directing work in the blaze fight said that it is believed a spark from the exhaust of a caterpillar ignited the tinder-like woods material.

“We have investigated so far as possible,” said Mr. Myrick at base camp No. 1 Thursday, “and are fairly certain that a caterpillar engaged in working in the woods cast a spark from its exhaust pipe.”

There had been rumors that a careless woods visitor had tossed a cigarette stub into “slashings,” waste timber remaining from logging operations.

Robert Hillman, Forest Service worker, found the bodies of the two young men. He said that apparently they had seen a fire blazing in back of them and began a headlong flight for safety, running down the old logging trail. Unfortunately, they headed into the thick of flames spreading toward them.

The bodies were brought here by Coroner Guy Stucky.

Difficult Task.

Eleven men spent nearly two hours removing the Coy and Van Sickle bodies a mile down a steep hill from where they were found. They toiled up a log chute in a narrow canyon to where the two men had been working. Supervisor E. H. Myrick of the Lolo forest and Coroner Stucky were in charge.

It is believed that the victims were trapped by spot fires or, bewildered by smoke, plunged into the main part of the blaze. They “came to their deaths from being caught in a forest fire,” was the official verdict of the Forest Service officials, and unless an inquest is held over their bodies that will be the final verdict.

Mrs. Coy was in Terry when her husband met death, and Mrs. Van Sickle was in East Missoula. Van Sickle has a sister in St. Louis. Private funeral services are to be held Saturday, according to tentative plans.

The fire Thursday afternoon had covered nearly 2,000 acres, and officers in charge of the fire crews hoped to hold it effectively enough to keep it from becoming very much larger.

Four Camps.

Four camps have been established in the Miller creek area. At one camp, the base camp, workers are fed and equipped for fighting the fires. At other camps, mules are quartered to be used in pack strings.

Workers have been recruited from the Bitter Root CCC camps, St. Joe area, the Deer Lodge national forest, Seeley lake country and workers from the Harper Logging company.

Mess tents and equipment stations have been hastily flung up at strategic points and activity is at a high peak as the forestry officials try to bring the blaze into submission.

Mr. Myrick said that the fire is not yet under control. He said that the extremely bad conditions of Wednesday brought the blaze to a point where holding it in check was almost impossible, although he believed that soon the ravaging flames would be stalemated.

Camp activities are being hampered by the curious. The Forest Service men asked that no visitors attempt to reach the scene. Men have been posted to stop cars from entering the area, although some managed to drive by.

“It is imperative that the public keep away from this district,” said Mr. Myrick. “We feel that it is not only dangerous, but that the chance for an accident on the winding roads is too good to help it along by letting cars come here. Trucks are constantly traveling back and forth from Missoula and we request that the public cooperate with us in this matter and keep away.”

Along the thickly-timbered Miller creek district, patches of smoke mark places where the fire is eating at the forest country. In one or two spots, the flames have traveled to within a short distance of the highway, and a haze hangs over the heavy shoulders of the hills.

At at least one point, the crackling of the flames, burning under a hot July sun, can be heard from the highway. Sporadic winds are fanning them. CCC workers gather at the camps for a hasty meal before going into the timbered vastnesses to fight the blazes.

David O. Lloyd of Billings sustained a fractured leg when a tree fell on his left knee. C. Baylor of Hamilton, an employe of the Findell Lumber company, who was timber cruising, was almost trapped by the fire as he was returning to the main road. He barely escaped by running a quarter-mile uphill through flames and smoke. His hand, arms and left foot were severely burned. Harry Osse of Cushman was hit by a falling tree, which toppled blazing upon him. His scalp was badly lacerated. Lloyd Baylor and Osse are in the Thornton hospital.

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On Saturday, July 24, the Daily Missoulian was reporting the fire was now under control:

Miller Creek Blaze Under Control

High Winds Remain as Big Threat

Some Men Released From Firefighting Force Friday Night. Heavy Smoke Hinders Forest Efforts.

Bury Victims Today

Private Rites to Be Conducted for Woodsmen Who Succumbed During First Hour of Holocaust.

Forest officials, basing their hopes on quiet weather conditions, Friday night announced that the Miller creek blaze was on a control basis – barring high winds during the early morning hours. The crews on the front hoped to keep the flames in check until daylight today, but dense clouds of smoke caused worry because of the possibility that spot fires might be obscured and left unattended.

Friday evening 40 lumberjacks from the Harper Logging company camp in the Bitter Root were pulled off the fire and sent back by trucks to their logging camp, and forest officials expect to lay off more men Saturday. The crew Thursday night totaled 700 men.

“We are in a position now to say that the fire is under control,” Earl Tennant, fire chief, who is coordinating activities from the federal building here, said last night.

No Spread Friday.

No spread in the first area was reported Friday, despite the strong winds which swept Western Montana during the afternoon, and with a cool night forecast, it was expected that further progress in the battle against the fire would be made during the night.

Under control also was the fire on the North Fork of the Flathead river, 10 miles north of Columbia Falls, and the 375 Forest Service and Glacier park firefighters were laid off until only 125 men were on the line Friday evening.

Funeral services for Lee Coy, 24, and Roy Van Sickle, 22, who perished in the flames Wednesday when trapped by the onrushing fire, are to be held this afternoon in the Stucky chapel. The services will be private. Dr. D. E. Jackson is to officiate. Burial will be in Missoula cemetery. Mrs. Coy, with her four-month-old daughter, Dianne, arrived her Friday from Miles City. She was in Terry when the tragedy overtook her husband an hour after the fire started near the place where they were working for a logging contractor.

No New Blazes.

Aside from the North Fork fire, no other blazes in northern Idaho or Western Montana were reported to headquarters here.

Seven miles of fire line are being maintained by the Miller creek crews.

Ten cords of tamarack wood, left piled in the woods to season, were lost by Neil Briggs and William Hollaman. They declared that the fire hazard is so great that they are selling their wood as fast as they can rather than take a chance on further loss by forest fires.

A spotfire which blew up east of Miller peak late Thursday, scorching 40 to 50 acres in its express-like spread, was fought Friday morning. The main fire, which so far has caused the deaths of two log sawyers caught in its initial rush and severe injuries to three fire fighters, was quiet early Friday, but weather predictions of gusts of wind and possible dry electrical storms made the tenure unsafe.

Smoke Is Dense.

Smoke covered much of the fire zone, of which it is now thought that less than two thousand acres has been burned. So steep and difficult of access is the high country scorched by the flames that a hurryup order was sent for shoelasts and hob nails to equip the CCC forces better for the particular style of fighting the flames necessary.

Eleven miles of fire line must be held before the blaze is under control, it was said. Most of the fires are in lodgepole pine country, at present very inflammable.

Story of the courage of Lewis Phillips of Valentine, a forest school student here and employed as lookout on Miller peak, came to the Lolo forest offices from the front. An outbuilding at the lookout station was burned, but Phillips stayed at his post on the lookout tower erected on a high pile of rocks adjacent to the cabin. Phillips fireproofed the lookout as best he could and clung to his perch through the smoke and flames. The wooden tower so far had resisted the flames and Phillips was on top, scanning the clouds of smoke. He had instructions by telephone to leave when real danger threatened, but so far was sitting on top of the lookout peak and assisting to the best of his means in the campaign.

Camp No. 4, on the front of the fire, is being supplied by hard-pushed packstrings. The other three camps are on the Miller creek road and are served by trucks.

The Forest Service brought a hundred CCC men from the Powell country Friday, resting them at the Superior and Nine Mile camps in readiness for a call to the Miller creek country if they are needed. The Army Friday sent a physician and an ambulance into Miller creek to anticipate possible demands and emergencies.

 

Two articles appearing in the Daily Missoulian on Sunday addressed the Miller creek fire:

Carelessness Is Cause of Great Damage in Fire

Terrific Loss in Lives and Funds in Miller Creek Devastated Area

Human carelessness was responsible for heavy expenditures, loss to the state of Montana, the Northern Pacific railroad and the federal government, destruction of a large area of the beautiful Miller creek area, and irreparable damage to the watershed southeast of the city, according to Regional Forester Evan Kelley, who tramped over the devastated region Saturday. The most frightful loss was the lives of Lee Coy and Ray Van Sickle, who died within an hour after the fire started near the Hollaman ranch Wednesday afternoon.

“A good job was done in fighting the fire, expert work in organizing and placing camps with the greatest of expedition and a minimum loss of time,” said Major Kelley.

“Very rapid work of construction of barriers to cut off the fire, and spectacular and effective work in the suppression of spot fires on the face of a steep mountain side were noticeable.

“CCC boys struck at the head of the flames in suffocating smoke and fought through the day in mopping up the fire. The boys showed remarkable stamina in their efforts.

“The fire, which burned more state land and railroad land than it did Forest Service property, will blacken Miller creek to the top of Miller peak, having run across two sections of land.

“Investigation indicates that had the two men who met death in the fire Wednesday run into green timber, in an opposite direction, but 200 yards from where they were working, they would have been saved, as this timber was not touched. Instead, in panic, they followed the tractor trail into the bottleneck of the canyon and ran head-on into the advancing fire, making an expess-rate run at that time.”

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Crews Stamping Out Big Blaze On Miller Creek

More Than Half of Fighters Taken From Fire.

Woods Dry.

More than half of the crew of 700 men fighting the Miller creek fire were pulled off the firefront Saturday, and the remaining workers are stamping out the last sparks of the three-mile-wide blaze today. Spot fires, difficult to detect because of the dense smoke overhanging the rugged area, are being encircled as soon as they can be located.

Saturday morning 125 CCC workers from the St. Joe and Deer Lodge forests and from the Nine Mile camp came to Missoula and were returned to their camps, as well as 40 loggers from the Harper camps in the Bitter Root and 60 fire fighters hired in Missoula, all being released from front-line duty.

Advance of the main fire was completely checked Friday.

A smoker’s fire near the Milwaukee ranch four miles east of Superior was checked Friday.

A crew of 27 men was fighting a blaze on the Nezperce, where a smoker’s fire was previously checked. The Kootenai had a smoker’s fire, the Flathead and the Helena each had one lightning fire.

Generally the situation was becoming of grave concern, as fire hazard rose along the Continental divide, with forests still dry.

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The only humorous aspect found in the Miller Creek fire came in a Daily Missoulian article on July 31:

Mule vs. Man

Cook No Match for Animal in Tug-of-War!

After losing in an impromptu tug-of-war with a mule on the Miller creek fire front, Robert Hayden, Forest Service cook, is facing an extended stay in a hospital here. The tussle occurred Thursday and Hayden was brought to the hospital by ambulance.

With mule-like independence, the animals decided abruptly to go somewhere else, and Hayden, who was holding their halter ropes while a packer piled big burdens on them, became entangled with the ropes. The touring mule at the other end of the rope dragged his holder over the terrain, over rocks and logs, until cuts, bruises and one deep laceration had been inflicted. By that time the panting packer had stopped the string of mules.

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