The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-23
FIGHTERS WORK UNDER
HEAVY PALS OF SMOKE
INNUMERABLE FIRES IN
FORESTS OF NORTHWEST.
fSerious Situation Confronts
Montana officials-Many
New Fires Reported.

/ Portland, Ore, July 2S.-Severa
thousand men are fighting undel
heavy pals of smoke in widely scat
tered units today for mastery ovel
| innumerable fires that are raging IN
| the forests Of the northwest. with
continued high winds and the raging
| fires from a protracted drought,
which threatens to develop in holo-
caust in the states of Oregon. Wash
ington, Montana and Idaho. accord
ing to reports here from forestry Of
ficials in these states.
With-continued hot weather and no
prospect Of rain in the immediate fu-
| ture forestry officials expect the sit
uation to grow worse instead of bet
ter unless their fighting forces are
augmented by the dispatch Of federal
troops to the most seriously affected
districts.
A most serious situation confronts
the forest officials in Montana, where
more than a score of new fires have
been reported within the past forty
eight hours and some of the old ones
largely out Of control.
In Washington fires have sprung
up in the Kanilxsi forest in the north
eastern part of the state and are
spreading over several thousand
acres. In addition to this, the new
fires there are big ones, burning in
the Rainier forest. Snoquil Mie forest
and several in the Wenatchie river
district.
! In oregon fires have tiazed up al
most over night in nearly every
wooded section of the state with the
possible exception of the west slope
Of the coast range, where ocean air
currents protect them with moisture.
Unable to Check Spread.
Spokane. Wash, July 25.-Twenty-
five hundred forestry service men.
soon to be increased to 5000, and
hundreds of men in the employ of
timber protective associations have
failed to hold in check serious forest
fires which were raging today, many
of them far out of bounds, in north
ern Idaho and western and central
Montana.
Four Montana towns, Thompson
Falls, county seat of Sanders county;
St. Regis, on the Couer d'Alene
branche of the Northern Pacific rail-
way; Henderson, near st. Regis, and
Maiden. = pioneer mining camp near
Lewiston. Te9e menaced seriously by
the flames. The blaze is within a
mile and quarter of Thompson
Falls and citizens. ranchers and for
est service employees were combating
it, Forest Supervisor Baker stated
last night the fire probably would be
and Thompson Falls saved if
the weather remained favorable.
A serious blaze was spreading dyer
approximately $4,000 acres in the
national forest and threat |
ems the property of one of the larg-
est ranches in south central Mon |
tana. A fire at Hughes creek. in |
the Bitter Root forest, south of Mis-
soula, advanced five miles yesterday. |
The Cold creek blaze, near st. Regis, |
had broken beyond all control and |
the Henderson fire was within one |
and one quarter miles of that lumber
camp. Serious confagrations were
raging almost unchecked in the Ka-
niksu and Pend O'Reille forests on
the extreme northern part of the
Idaho panhandle and in the Coeur
1Alene forest just to the south. A
ire between Sand Point and Hope,
IDAHO, had swept over forty square
niles and destroyed millions of feet
of pine timber.
The Mission creek blaze, on the
canadian Idaho line, burst its bounds
and is now burning in tim
ser on the American side after de-
roying the camp of the fire fighting
,reWs