After remaining near his place of refuge from 1 

 P. M. on the 19th until 6 A. M. on the 20th he ven- 

 tured to go through some of the burned areas along 

 the trail. He said that for several hours, in fact all 

 during that night, big boulders were rolling down the 

 steep slopes which had been burned and kept crashing 

 into the river, logs and tree trunks were also rolling 

 down these slopes. There were several crews prac- 

 tically in the path of this fire who somehow or other 

 managed to take refuge in such a way that they were 

 not killed. The Bungalow Banger Station, which was 

 one of the supply stations up the river was burned 

 out by the same fire and a friend of mine with sev- 

 eral men who were working under him just barely 

 got away. This fire covered a distance of from 25 

 to 30 miles in two or three hours. 



I was on fire work in Clearwater on the same day 

 (August 19), but in another District. "We had the 

 blow-up too, for it was general throughout Montana 

 and Idaho, and I shall remember what I saw and did 

 that day as long as I live. I was in no great danger 

 at any time of losing my life, still it was exciting. I 

 had just gone from what was called the Holo Camp, 

 where I had spent about a week helping to put three 

 rather small fires under control, to a larger fire some 

 12 miles farther on up the Holo Trail. I was under 

 instructions to assist a Forest Officer named Joe 

 Holm who had three camps and w<as working about 

 150 men. Upon arriving at the headquarters camp, 

 I found the crews had been pretty well concentrated 

 at the camp and about 100 men were working their 

 heads off to hold some two or three miles of line 



28 



