Fallen ‘Forgotten Five’ firefighters remembered
Poorly trained. Overwhelmed. Doomed.
On Aug. 25, 1931, five men died west of Choteau as they battled a fire at Waldron Creek.
Herbert Novotny, Frank Williamson, Hjalmer Gunnarson, Ted Bierchen and Charles Allen never stood a chance, Charles Palmer concluded wrote.
Three men were buried in unmarked graves, with the Teton County coroner saying they had “no one to blame but himself” for their deaths.
“They made the ultimate sacrifice, yet their loss has been forgotten,” he wrote. “This book is an attempt to tell their tale, what little is known of it, and to make others aware of their contributions to the greater good. It is the least that can be done for them, even if it is more than 80 years too late.”
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Novotny, 20, and Williamson, 24, were best friends from Great Falls. Bierchen, 46, was a drifter from Luxembourg. A World War I veteran, probably, Allen, 37, came from Pittsburgh. Gunnarson, 39, was an Iceland-born Canadian World War I veteran. They tried in their last moments to build a fire line, going on the offensive against the blaze, evidence suggests.
“The men who died were expendable casualties in the Forest Service’s war on fire. Questions were never raised. Investigations were never launched,” Palmer wrote.
Choteau in 1931 was “moving along at the typical small-town pace.” The annual flower show had a record 136 entries. A September rodeo expected 30 riders. Upland bird season was canceled owing to the drought. City Marshall A.H. McGinnis was beaten nearly to death by a thief who stole $300 worth of guns and ammunition plus cash from the Choteau Hardware Co.
The U.S. Forest Service was young but had already established “little interest in recognizing or caring for those who were injured or died fighting its fires,” Palmer wrote. The agency even left a grief-stricken father to drag his 17-year-old firefighter son’s body out of still-burning terrain so he could bury it after a 1910 fire. The father had a heart attack within two weeks, leaving behind a widow with young children. The Forest Service said no to compensation and never got back to the widow/mother about her request for a headstone.
Montana was dry in August 1931. Fires popped up around the state, among them a “rather innocuous little blaze” high in the headwaters of the South Fork of Waldron Creek near Choteau.
Resources were already tied up with other fires. The agency used fire militias, temporary help recruited from pool halls, bars, soup kitchens and employment offices. The pickings were easy with so much of the country out of work, but most weren’t prepared for the riggers of the fireline, Palmer wrote.
“Little did the men realize that by suppertime of that same evening, a quarter of them would be dead, their bodies so grossly burned that those looking for them would have a difficult time distinguishing the remains from the blackened tree stumps of the landscape,” Palmer wrote.
Through his 20 years fighting fires, he didn’t think much about what burning to death would be like, Palmer, a former smokejumper and National Smokejumper Association chief historian, wrote. Now a University of Montana professor, he came closer than most people will, through his career.
And he thought about it as he wrote of the book. Of being trapped. Of impossible odds.
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The fire was 400 yards from the hastily recruited men when the breeze stiffened. Flames jumped into the trees and roared through the crowds. Within minutes the main fire doubled in size and raced to join a smaller fire, with men trapped between.
“The sound was what they noticed first,” Palmer wrote. “It came across as a wildly misplaced train, barreling down on them from invisible tracks, belching black smoke through the trees.”
Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at kinbody@greatfallstribune.com. Follow her on Twitter at @GFTrib_KInbody.
Book: “Montana’s Waldron Creek Fire: The 1931 Tragedy and the Forgotten Five”
Author: Charles Palmer
Publisher: The History Press
Pages: 162
Price: $21.99
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