Record 18/19 |
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Description
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| 72 firefighters died in the Coeur d' Alene National Forest; four in the Cabinet; and two in the Pend Oreille. Two civilians died in Wallace, one in Taft, a prospector at the head of the St. Joe River; and three homesteaders below Newport. The USFS official death count stands at 85; undoubtedly there were many more not accounted for. "Owing to the great difficulties of transportation, most of the dead firefighters' bodies were buried where they lay. A great many of them were burned beyond all hope of identification. The eight dead men at the Bullion mine were temporarily buried in a long trench, but a week or ten days later were disinterred and the bodies moved to the Wallace cemetery." When the Mountains Roared - Elers Koch. "Most of the other bodies lay in the temporary graves until 1912, when fifty-three corpses were exhumed under contract with a local undertaker, at a cost of $60.15 each, and reburied in the cemetery at St. Maries. In 1924 the appropriations bill carried an item of $500 for marking the graves, and a suitable monument and headstones were erected." When the Mountains Roared - Elers Koch Image 1: USFS Memorial at Nine Mile Cemetery near Wallace. Jim McReynolds. |
1910 Fire Overview
-USFS 1910 Fire Memorial at Nine Mile Cemetery
-Copyright Wallace District Mining Museum
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ~ When using this image, the credit information should be in the following format: Image courtesy of the Wallace District Mining Museum & the US Forest Service.
| USFS Memorial at Nine Mile Cemetery |
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ~ When using this image, the credit information should be in the following format: Image courtesy of the Wallace District Mining Museum & the US Forest Service.