On this #TBT, we look at an early history of forest fires in the Bighorn National Forest. The following excerpts from a history prepared by the first forest supervisor, James F. Conner, in 1940:
Fires have occurred in the forest long before the advent of the white man. It is known that the Indians set fires to drive out invaders. Lightning started many fires then as it does now. It would be hard to find a single section in the forest that would not show evidence of having been burned over at some time in the past. The Indians, of course, made no effort to suppress fires nor did the white settlers until about 1900.
The first known fire occurred in 1876, when the Sioux Indians retreated into the Bighorns and set fire to much of the timber to keep General Crook from following.
A great fire along Tongue River and some of its branches was started in an unknown manner about September 15th, 1899, and was finally extinguished by a snowstorm about October 7th, after being fought for two weeks by a gang of over 50 men. About 50,000 acres burned, mostly outside the forest.
On August 28th, 1900, some sawmill employees, when clearing a new site for a sawmill, (Farnham’s possibly) on a tributary of Goose Creek, at a point about two miles southwest of the Sheridan Hyattsville wagon road allowed the fire to escape from a pile of burning brush. With a strong SW wind, this fire extended in a narrow strip across three miles of timber and open park land in less than four hours. The fire burned until the second week in September.
