Cody, WY Forest Fires, Aug 1937 - 12 Firefighters Dead

Twelve Forest Fire Fighters in Wyoming are Dead of Their Burns

MANY HURT IN WYOMING FOREST FIRE
TWELVE DIE

C.C.C. WORKERS TRAPPED IN WILDS, PERISH MISERABLY

Cody, Wyo., Aug. 22 – (AP) – The toll of a wind-driven forest fire sweeping through the Ahsaroka mountains mounted to-night to 12, as rescue workers found another body in the charred ruins.

Half a hundred fire fighters were trapped and burned.

Six of the dead were identified shortly before midnight by Civilian Conservation corps and forest service officials.

The six, they announced, were:
AL CLAYTON, 45, Sheridan, Wyo., forest service ranger.
BILLY LEE, 20, Cody, Wyo., Bureau of Public Roads foreman.
JIMMY SABIN, Hayattville, Wyo., crew foreman of the C. C. C. camp at Tensleep, Wyo.
REX HALE, Junior technician attached to the C. C. C. at Cody, Wyo.
GEORGE ROGERS, George, Texas.
ROY BEVENS, Smithsville, Texas.

All were in Cody mortuaries.

To Recover
Nine in the general hospital, all Tensleep C. C. C. workers suffering from second and third degree burns but expected to recover, were:
JOHN GOMEZ, Bastrop, Texas; DAVID THOMPSON, Bastrop; WILLIAM MUELLER, New Ulm, Texas; SAM VAN ARSDALL, Cody; JOE ZAVALA, San Antonio, Texas; ALTON MURRAY, Pom, Okla.; JOHN LeVINE, San Antonio; ALCARIO SERROS, San Antonio; ROY REED, McDade, Texas.

H. F. MARION, chief clerk in the Shoshone forest supervisor's office in Cody, said the fire died down some tonight after burning over 1,500 to 2,000 acres. It was not, however, under control, and 500 or more men continued battling the flames.

Scores Trapped
The flames on the still advancing inferno trapped ERL DAVIS, Bureau of Public roads foreman, nine other bureau employes and approximately 40 C. C. C. enrollees while they dug frantically yesterday on a mountainside leading to a bank of ledge rock, to erect a fire line.

“The wind suddenly whipped the flames up to the tree tops,” said DAVIS. “I never saw fire travel so fast. It encircled us faster than we could run.

“When I saw we were trapped I herded all the men to the rock ledge and forced them to lie down.”

“But the flames roared over the rocks from the tree tops and the fire licked at out clothing.”

“Some of the C. C. C. boys got excited. They started to run away. Some of us older men forced them to say on the rock refuge, but some got away.”

Hearses Sent
H. F. MARION, chief clerk of the forest supervisor's office in Cody, said he was ordered to send hearses to the scene to get bodies.
The hearse drivers faced a trip over dangerous mountain roads.
A first-aid station, with the assistance of six Cody physicians and a score or more nurses, was established at a forest service field camp near the fire.

While C. C. C. members worked all night with pack horses and stretchers bearing the burned to first aid more than 500 men continued battling the flames.

Most of the victims were from the C. C. C. camp at Tensleep, Wyo.
Reinforcements were rushed to the scene yesterday after the blaze, of undetermined origin and discovered Friday, swept beyond control. This afternoon wind again sent the flames eating through dense timber.

Score Come In
Twenty-three of the victims, not seriously burned, walked to the Shoshoni C. C. C. camp from their entrapment, and there received treatment before being sent to Cody.

Two stretcher crews of 12 men each carried out the injured.
With the wind causing the fire to crown (sweep through the tops of trees) A. A. BROWN of the regional forest service office at Denver hastened to Cody today to direct fire fighting.

Forest service men said the fire was seven miles or more from the nearest house, and that no livestock was endangered.
Physicians, nurses and ordinary citizens hastened from Cody today to aid the men.

The physicians, laden with aids of their science, hiked through darkness over a perilous mountain trail nearly 10,000 feet above sea level to reach the blackened area 35 miles west of Cody where the fire fighters were hemmed in by flames.

Two visiting doctors joined six Cody physicians in rushing to Wyoming's greatest fire disaster in many years.

From Billings
From Billings, Mont., approximately 250 miles northeast of the fire, DR. W. R. MORRISON and a staff of several nurses left for Cody.
All responded to a frantic call for medical assistance from the isolated Shoshone Civilian Conservation corps camp seven miles from the blaze.
Townspeople volunteered automobiles, blankets and other articles.
Scarcely anyone in this north-western Wyoming town of 1,800 population slept last night. Cody had never experienced such excitement.

Emergency treatment for the burned also was given by five C. C. C. physicians who had accompanied C. C. C. enrollees from camps at Denver, Shoshoni, Worland, Thermopolis and Tensleep.

Come From Park
Today, as the wind-whipped flames, ravenously extended their devastation beyond 1,500 acres of heavily wooded mountains, fire fighters from Yellowstone National park joined the 500 or more men already fighting the conflagration.

Yellowstone park boundary is 53 miles from Cody, which is situated on the edge of the Shoshoni forest. Thousands of tourists enter the park annually via Cody.

The Helena Independent Montana 1937-08-23
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!