Guest Post by Monte Stonewall
A destructive wildfire is merciless to the land on which it resides. Each year, 1.2 million acres of US woodland burn, according to weather.com. Vegetation is destroyed and animals are killed or displaced. People also experience the devastation; the long-term costs of wildfires reach into the billions. In 2009, the Station Fire north of Los Angeles burned more than 160,000 acres, costing tens of millions of dollars. Two firefighters were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes. It was one of the largest wildfires in LA County modern history. Unfortunately, more than four out of five wildfires are caused by the carless behavior of people. Camp fires and cigarettes often spark the blazes, which are facilitated by hot, dry and windy weather. Other times, lightning strikes are the cause and the inferno is fueled by dense vegetation. Below are ten of the most devastating wildfires – manmade or caused naturally – in American history.
Adirondack Fire – 637,000 acres An abundance of dead leaves that accumulated during the autumn and a 72-day drought made conditions in Adirondack State Park in Upstate New York especially conducive to wildfires. The fires were centered in Lake Placid and covered neighboring areas like Schroon Lake, Newcomb and Clintonville.
Peshtigo Fire – 3.7 million acres The 1871 Peshtigo Fire claimed 1,500 lives as it raged through Wisconsin and Michigan; the most of whom died in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which was about half of the town’s population. According to some accounts, the inferno was started by railroad workers who were clearing land in order to lay tracks during the dry summer. Perhaps the most devastating fire in American history, it’s overlooked in part because the Chicago Fire started on the same day.
Yacolt Burn – 1 million acres The Devil Wind from Eastern Washington helped propagate fires in the southwestern counties of the state on September 11th, 1902. Millions of dollars of timber were lost, and 38 people died in Cowlitz, Clark and Skamania counties. Before the disaster, there wasn’t an organized system for dealing with wildfires in Washington, but that changed in 1903 when a state fire warden was established.
Great Fire of 1910 – 3 million acres Strong winds on August 20th and 21st spread fires across millions of acres of forested land in Montana, Idaho and Washington. As a result, 86 people were killed; many of whom were firefighters. The Great Fire of 1910 helped ensure the US Forest Service would henceforth be used to suppress fires.
Summer 2008 California Wildfires – 1.56 million acres According to the LA Times, the state of California spent roughly $1 billion and the US Forest Service spent about $700,000,000 to fight the summer ‘08 blazes, which started in Monterey Country. Initially, more than 2,000 fires were started by a dry-lightning storm. It was estimated that more than 2,300 structures were destroyed.
October 2007 California Wildfires – 500,000 acres Not a year before the destruction that occurred in the summer of ‘08, October fires engulfed 1,500 homes in Southern California , killing nine people. Half a million people were forced to evacuate as the fire spread across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Summer 2004 Alaskan Wildfires – 6.6 million acres An irregularly warm and dry summer contributed to an incredibly active wildfire season. A total of 710 fires burned – 426 were caused by humans and 275 were caused by lightning. The three single largest fires were the Boundary Creek Fire, Dall City Fire and Bully Creek Fire, which covered just fewer than 1.5 million acres. More than 2,700 firefighting personnel helped ensure there were no fatalities amid the massive destruction.
Yellowstone Fires of 1988 – 793,880 acres By the end of the summer of ‘88, 36 percent of the park was burned by seven major fires. The most destruction occurred on Black Sunday – August 20th – when high winds caused more than 150,000 acres to burn. More than 25,000 firefighters from various states attempted to extinguish the fires, which didn’t cease until November.
Murphy Complex Fire – 653,100 acres The largest fire in Idaho in almost 100 years was a product of six lightning-caused wildfires. It started on July 16th, 2007 near the Idaho-Nevada border, and it burned hundreds of thousands of acres of private, public and state land. Grass, brush and juniper ensured that the fire remained vigorous during the more than two weeks that it burned.
Great Hinkley Fire – 300,000 acres Two fires converged on September 1st, 1894 south of Hinkley, Minnesota, destroying the town along with several others. Officially, 418 deaths were recorded, though many people from the area have speculated that the number was greater, possibly close to 800.The disaster remains one of the biggest in the history of the state.
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