Fire in the White Pine: Blaze Runs from Blue Slide Toward Calispel Mountain
Lumber companies rush crews to protect one of the Pend Oreille's finest white-pine districts as a forest fire spreads near Ruby Creek.
A fierce forest fire is raging in the vicinity of Ruby Creek, from near Blue Slide nearly to the peak of Calispel Mountain. The fire is in the heart of one of the finest white pine districts down the Pend Oreille. The Consolidated Lumber Co., of Elk, and the Panhandle Lumber Co., of Spirit Lake, have large holdings in that district. Capt. LeClerc sent word to both companies this noon regarding the fire, and a large number of men will be put to work as soon as possible to try and stop the fire.
“The fire is in the heart of one of the finest white pine districts down the Pend Oreille.”
In 1908 a fire in the white pine belt was an economic emergency as much as an ecological one; timber holdings were the region's bank account. Today Pend Oreille County still lives with wildfire risk, but the values at stake now include homes, watersheds and the communities that grew up around that timber economy.
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