The Big Wildfire of 1908 – Part 3

The late summer fire had burned nearly the entire floor of the Crescenta Valley in just a few hours. Amazingly, thanks to a large volunteer force, only four ranches were consumed, but many orchards and vineyards were damaged. The fire raged through the mountains for several days after. The newspapers of the time offer some amusing and sad reflections on the social aspects of the disaster that should be familiar today.

A pretty girl has always been a good way to hook newspaper readers, even a century ago. The headlines of one paper shouted out the headlines “Red walls move through valley. People of La Crescenta battle with a disastrous fire, charged to Glendale preacher – All-night struggle on mountains.” There is a big accompanying photo on the front page, taking nearly half the page. It’s not a picture of burning homes or brave volunteer firefighters. It is a huge portrait of pretty Miss Alma Booth, the young daughter of the owner of the La Crescenta General Store at Foothill Boulevard and La Crescenta Avenue. She smiles a Mona Lisa smile, her bejeweled fingers touching her lips. It seems that Miss Booth had planned a party for that night of the fire and had invited many of her teenaged friends over. The party was canceled by the fire so the big cake and the gallons of ice cream fed the firefighters instead. And young Miss Booth got her photo on the front page of a Los Angeles newspaper in order to sell copies of said newspaper.

The blame-game was played by the Rev. Ward, the man on whom the responsibility for the fire was laid. As written in Part 1, the Rev. Ward and his two sons were clearing 10 acres of sagebrush by a permitted controlled burn. A wind gust blew embers into surrounding brush and the fire got away from them. Initially the clergman apologized profusely and told the general store owner that he would pay for any damages. He sent his two sons to work with the volunteers on the fire line and they were both injured in the effort. But as the fire spread and destroyed property and angry fire officials vowed to arrest the Rev. Ward, the story changed somewhat.

The Rev. Ward, when interviewed after the fire, claimed he never said he would pay for damages. Furthermore, he said that the blame should really lie with two unnamed forest rangers. Ward said that while he and his sons were fighting the initial blaze the two rangers came by on horseback. Ward claimed that the rangers took them away from the blaze in order to show the rangers where the fire started. After they did so, the rangers told Ward that he was not to blame for the fire, then leisurely dismounted and ate their lunch while the fire raced away.

The now famous William Mulholland, then-superintendent of LA’s water department, faced some stiff criticism when he refused to send his army of workers to help with the fire. At the time his refusal sounded mean-spirited and hateful, but when interviewed after the fire, his rationale may sound familiar today. He stated that there was no way to prevent these fires. It was a natural occurrence, compounded by the fact that there would always be careless fools around to start fires. It was better to have small fires controllable each year, rather than entirely prevent them. The brush would just build up year-after-year and when it did burn it would result in massive fires impossible to control, like this one. He said that yes, the ranches in the foothills should be saved, but he also said that it should be the responsibility of each ranch to clear wide firebreaks around their properties.

Wise words coming to us from over 100 years ago. And so we see that not much changes through time. Pretty girls are still used to sell a product. Those who make costly mistakes in life still blame others in order to evade responsibility. And the wisdom of forestry fire management has lessons that we seem to have to learn over and over.

  mike lawler