When the Mountains Burned Red The Big Blowup Essay

Think about the things you love and care about. Your home, your family, your photographs that keep the memories you hold dearly, even the things you say you hate now but know you would miss if they were gone. Like the ugly photo your wife insists stays up but you deal with it because you know she loves it. Imagine all these things being taken away without your consent, while you just watch helplessly as your memories just disappear. Sadly enough, this was the reality for several families living in the North-west at the time of the 1910 fires. Some watched as the fires consumed their homes, while others came back to nothingness. This was a devastating time for everyone in the North-west and it caused a lot of controversy within the forest†¦show more content†¦Some say there were 1,736 fires that burned and others say 3,000 total, but any way you look at it, there was still a ton of woodland burning. On August 19 all of the fires seemed to have died down tremendously, so they sent people home, however, they had no idea what Mother Nature had planned for the next two days (Petersen). Of course the worst comes after everyone thinks it is over. August 20th through the 21st was filled with winds as strong as tornados that swept through northern Idaho and western Montana. The winds rekindled the hot coals and the thousands of fires from the day before became one massive fire. Jim Petersen described the sights in an editorial for Evergreen Magazine in 1995; he said, †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ fires became firestorms, and trees by the millions became exploding candles. Millions more, sucked from the ground, roots and all, became flying blowtorches. It was dark by four in the afternoon, save for wind-powered fireballs that rolled from ridge top to ridge top at seventy miles an hour. They lea.-The â€Å"Big Blowup,† as they call the two horrific days of the fires didn’t just influence the forests and people of the area, â€Å"By noon on the twenty-first, daylight was dark as far north as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, as far south as Denver, and as far east as Watertown, Ne w York. To the west, the sky was so filled with smoke, ships 500 miles at sea could not navigate by