The Big Blowup

The policy had names attached. Three men who fought the 1910 fires, William Greeley, Robert Stuart and Ferdinand Silcox, led the Forest Service in turn from 1920 to 1938. Chief Henry Graves staked the young agency on beating fire and won the Weeks Act of 1911, which tied state forestry agencies to federal money for fire suppression. In 1935, under Silcox, the Forest Service ordered that every fire be controlled by ten o'clock the next morning, a rule it formally abandoned in 1978.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pulaski Tunnel Trail — 9.3 mi
  The mine tunnel where a ranger held his crew at gunpoint while the 1910 fire burned over them.
• Sunshine Miners Memorial — 15 mi
  A steel miner raises his drill at the mouth of Big Creek, above ninety-one small headstones.

More markers nearby

• Willow Creek Slide — steps away
• 25th Infantry Regiment — steps away
• Land of the Schitsu'umsh (Schitsu'umshu'lmkhw) — 1.1 mi
• Schitsu'umsh — 1.1 mi