Los Angeles herald., 1910-08-25
ASSOCIATED Press)

(Associatets PreSB)
SPOKANE, WASH, Aug 24.-There are 1914
men In the two forest ranger parties now
missing In the country at the headwaters of
the st. Joe river. Ninety-four men i'm
the party headed by Joseph ID. Hahn, and
the expedition under f. A. Fern contains
100 men. Deputy Rangers Fisher and HOl-
comb left Wallace today at the head of re-
lief expeditions to the st. Joe. They Will
try to penetrate the forest by way of the
Clearwater divide, carrying medicines and
condensed ratlOns. An attempt to reach
the st. Joe by way of Iron mountain yes
terday failed.
A special to the Spokesman Review from
wallace says that Forest Supervisor Weigle
said tonight there were other large
parties than those of Hahn and Fern miss
ing in the Coeur d'Alene forests. though
there may be loss of life in isolated groups.
Hahn and his men are in the densest woods
and are 75 miles from a railroad, at Avery.
Fern and his men are so miles from safety.
Conditions on tho st. Joe are very bad. Alb
sence of news Is discouraglng, but the lead
ers arc skillful and experienced and hOpo
has not been abandoned. The names of the
80 dead men at Grand Forks and the 20 at
Setter creek are not known hero.
| SPOKANE, Wash, Aug. 24.-It is be-
lieved that more than 200 persons.
nearly all fire fighters, perlshed in this
Idaho forest fires.
Superintendent Weigle of the Occur
dA1ene national forest, after receiving
many reports of disaster to various
parties of the 600 employees, posted a
bulletin today in his office at Wallace
announcing the death of 11S of the men,
and also stated his grave concern for
the safety of Ranger Joseph B. Hahn
and ninety-four men who were sur
rounded by fire Friday night in the Big
Fork of the Coeur d'Alene river near
where another party lost thirteen men.
Hahn was for four years the best
athlete of the Washington state coll
lege at Pullman and renowned foot
ball player. The charred bodies Of
twenty fire fighters were found yester-
day on Setser creek, in the st. Joe
country. Two burned Japanese dragged
themselves to Avery, Idaho, last night
and told of the death Of ten of their
comrades. The twelve men, employed
by the Milwaukee railroad, had gone
out to fight the fire and had been sur
rounded by flames, only two men es-
Gaping death.
The rangers missing in the Thompson
Falls country of Montana were not
heard from today, so far as known
here.
The number of deaths in the state
of Washington was reduced to three,
all in the Pend d'Oreille valley, near
| Newport. One of these victims, Mrs.
Ernest Deinhardt, wife of rancher,
was the only woman known to have
been burned to death in any OF tho
fires.
MANY DEAD UNIDENTIFIEp
1t will be noted that nearly all of the
dead were fire fighters.
| The wholesale loss of life occurred
Saturday afternoon and night, when
efforts were making to check the flames
in order to save the various towns that
were threatened. The names of many
of the dead will never be known. Tho
rangers employed all the ablebodied
men whom they could impress into
service. When the groups of fire
fighters were overwhelmed the camps
were also destroyed, the clothes were
burned off the bodies of the men, and
| the bodies of the dead were often 80
charred that searchers stepned On
them, thinking they were pieces OF
burned logs. The fire obliterated the
trails, and the burned country is difsi-
cult to go through because OF fallen
| trees.
With the towns out of dancer ana
the settlers fed to places Of sal ETY.. the
rangers were able to devote themselves
entirely today to the saving of trees,
and with effect. Various fires are iso-
lated and will die for lack of fuel.
In Montana rain and snow fell,
checking the flames. There are nine
known dead from the fires in Montana
and a number missing.
In Spokane today the sun shone clear,
and even in Wallace the smoke clouds
were lifted. No one ventures to esti-
mate the financial loss, for the extent
of the burned area is not fully known.
A pine tree centuries old has value
beyond that of the lumber it contains,
and the national forests have lost
many of the finest trees they possessed.
Although for convenience all the gov
ernment fire fighters have been spoken
Of as rangers, only a few of them are
regularly in the forest service, great
number having been sent to the fire
| line by employment agencies in Spo-
kane, which advertised for them in the
usual way upon the agency bulletin
boards, offering 25 cents an hour, free
board and bed. Many of the men thus
4 fGontlnusd an Paea Thraal