Ranked #4 in Firefighting, Ranked #9 in Civil Engineering — see more rankings.
On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men — college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps — to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue... more
Rankings by Category
The Big Burn is ranked in the following categories:
- #59 in Environment
- #51 in Environmental Science
- #58 in Environmentalism
- #68 in Events
- #22 in Fire
- #17 in Forestry
- #33 in National Parks
- #32 in Service