114 years ago, today, the most consequential wildfire in history...
Mann Made Cinema@Hotshot_Movie
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Aug 03, 2026
~2 min read
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114 years ago, today, the most consequential wildfire in history blew up right here. Today, we are in Wallace, ID on the anniversary of the Great Fire of 1910...ground zero of the fire, and site of the legendary Pulaski Tunnel...but the facts of this fire are simply unreal...🧵
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1910, back in the "optimal climate", was the driest year in memory. Transients, loggers, homesteaders, and *especially* trains had sparked hundreds of fires in the tinder-dry forest. Then on August 20th, hurricane force winds blew it out like a nuclear bomb.
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The winds were so strong, they ripped burning trees out by the roots, and tossed them across canyon like matchsticks. 400' flames pushed sideways like a blowtorch. In 2 days, the fire burned 3M acres, with most of the damage done in just *6 hours*
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Much of Wallace was nuked, day turned to night as far east as New York, as smoke blacked out the sky...even ships at sea couldn't navigate by the stars. 8 BILLION board feet of virgin timber were destroyed...enough to build 800,000 homes. And 86 people were killed.
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Forest Ranger Ed Pulaski became a legend when his 45-man fire crew was overrun by the inferno in a narrow canyon above Wallace. They were totally cut off, but Ed knew his forest like the back of his hand. He raced his men to an old mine shaft tunnel
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Pulaski shoved his men inside just as flames ripped through, and they rode out the inferno as the heat burned them blind and melted the boots off their feet. Pulaski threatened to shoot any man who tried to leave. After hours inside, Pulaski lay motionless, face down.
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One of the men said "come outside, boys...the boss is dead." From the charcoaled dust, Big Ed immediately muttered "like hell he is."
All but 5 of his men survived in the eponymously named Pulaski Tunnel.
All but 5 of his men survived in the eponymously named Pulaski Tunnel.
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Big Ed Pulaski then went on to create the quintessential wildland firefighting tool, "The Pulaski", an axe that's still used by Hotshots today.
While his legacy endures 114 years later, Ed Pulaski represents an inverted image of today's society: he didn't panic.
While his legacy endures 114 years later, Ed Pulaski represents an inverted image of today's society: he didn't panic.
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Government, on the other hand, did panic. The 1910 fire ultimately spawned the USFS' 10AM Policy: a radically aggressive fire suppression agenda that haunts us to this day. 100 years of excluding fire from a fire-dependent ecosystem is making fires far worse.
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Despite what you read in the press, there is nothing new under the sun. And while 100 years of fire suppression has brought us to a reckoning of worsening fires, they still don't compare to 1910. We ain't seen *nothing* like it. "Soot fell on the ice in Greenland"
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While we're eager to panic & call every catastrophe "unprecedented"...there's nothing new under the sun. Despite the devastation, Wallace looks gorgeous, & you'd never even know. Remember 1910 the next time you read the histrionic New York Times...they had Idaho smoke in their office even way back then.
