The worst of these fires were in Montana and Idaho, where the whole power of the Forest Service was used against them. The Forest Rangers, under the orders of their Supervisors, immediately organized or took charge of small companies of fire fighters, and began the work of getting them under control. But so fierce was the wind and so terrible the heat of the fires and the speed with which they moved, that in many places it became a question of saving the lives of the fire fighters rather than of putting out the fires. As a matter of fact, nearly a hundred of the men temporarily employed to help the Government fire fighters lost their lives, and many more would have died but for the courage, resource, and knowledge of the woods of the Forest Rangers.
Take, for example, the case of Ranger Edward C. Pulaski, of the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, stationed at Wallace, Idaho. Pulaski had charge of forty Italians and Poles. He had been at work with them for many hours, when the flames grew to be so threatening that it became a question of whether he could save his men. The fire was travelling faster than the men could make their way through the dense forest, and the only hope was to find some place into which the fire could not come. Accordingly Pulaski guided his party at a run through the blinding smoke to an abandoned mine he knew of in the neighborhood. When they reached it, he sent the men into the workings ahead of him, hung a wet blanket across the mouth of the tunnel, and himself stood there on guard. The fierce heat, the stifling air, and their deadly fear drove some of the foreigners temporarily insane, and a number of them tried to break out. With drawn revolver Pulaski held them back. One man did get by him and was burned to death. Many fainted in the tunnel. The Ranger himself, more exposed than any of his men, was terribly burned. He stood at his post, however, for five hours, until the fire had passed, and brought his party through without losing a single man except that one who got out of the tunnel, although his own injuries were so severe that he was in the hospital for two months as a result of them. The record of the Forest Service in these terrible fires is one of which every Forester may well be proud.