One hundred years ago today at 1500 hours (3:00pm), the bustling city of Wallace Idaho turned the street lights on, so folks could see their way, as the day appeared to be night with the natural light being choked from view by the smoke for the forest fire raging nearby. As the fire drew nearer citizens began evacuating the town, all except the men, for they were ordered to stay by the Mayor. The cigar store along with many other Wallace merchants began moving their inventories and personal effects from the west end tot he east end of town. The west end was near to Placer Creek drainage, the very place that all feared the raging fire would take them from. Reducing their town, their homes, their lives, to ash and memories.
Many that I interviewed today state that the exact time that the fire began in Wallace proper was;
2100 hours (9:00pm) August 20, 1910 the sky had seemed night for many hours, as ash and cinders fell upon the town and its people from somewhere behind the hills over where the sky was the color of orange and red, glowing from the flames which continued down the Placer Creek drainage. No one expected the fire to jump above the town and follow the ridegline, A ridgeline lines with dense forest vegetaion drier than dry for the lack of the rains and the drying power of the high gale force winds. Over time the falling fire brands grew in size and the brand that initially landed on the awning of the Wallace Times on Bank Street went unnoticed or perhaps unreported until the awning burst into flames. Flames that quickly spread, eating everything in its path. The earlier evacuation of inventories and personal effects from the opposite end of Wallace proved fruitless, as by the time the fire line/break was established, and held, one third of the town of Wallace was lost, an approximate 100 structures, and all the wares moved to safety to keep them from the fire crumbled to ash along with them.
Wallace Story Then and Now
One hundred years ago on the morning of this fateful Wallace day Ranger Ed Pulaski headed with his pack horse to the trailhead leading towards the fire. "Big Ed" had returned to Wallace from his crew at the fireline to replenish supplies, had dinner with his wife and daughter, who walked with him that morning, instructed the family where to go for safety, turned and said "Goodbye" for as he told them, he was not at this time certain they would see him again. He then rode off and out of site, down the trail, toward what proved to be a day of infamy.
Today preperations began for the memorial tomorrow, a rededication took place in Nine Mile Cemetery, and this writer learned a lot. Through the next posts and blogs I will help you to see the events of "The Big Burn."
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