The Idaho Press   August 25, 1910
Page 1

MISSING MEN LIST
NOW NUMBERS 400
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Parties Sent to St. Joe Force of More
Than 100 Return Beaten Back
By Raging Flames
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Known Dead

Grand Forks ………………………... 26
Bullion ……………………………….. 8
Wallace . …………………………….. 3
Avery ………………………………..12
Big Creek …………………………...13
Placer Creek ………………………....6
Pine Creek …………………………...2
Setser Creek ………………………..20
Rock Creek ………………………......2
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                                                             92
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Twenty Bodies Found.

    AVERY, Idaho, Aug. 24.—Bodies of [ ] employees of the forest survey were found within a radius of one mile of Setser creek yesterday by a searching party headed by Deputy Sheriffs Sullivan and Bassett. It is feared other bodies will be found before the searching is completed.
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    Government officers express fears for the safety of the force of fire fighters on the upper St. Joe river. There are 100 men on the St. Joe side of the mountain on the Clearwater there are 85 men. Reports have not been received from these crews and Supervisor Weigle said this morning that he is greatly worried over their safety.
    Deputy Supervisor Roscoe Haines had been in charge of the force, but he had gone to the railroad on business. While attempting to get back to the forest camp Mr. Haines was cut off and was forced to return. Another force of men who tried to get in were not able to pass through the fires. A rescue party has now been formed at Avery and they will go to the scene of the fire to learn if the men have lost their lives.

Seventy Are Safe.

    Seventy men from Ranger Kootkey’s crew have reached Saltese, according to reports received here. In their escape from the burning forest, 16 of their pack horses were lost.

Nearly 200 Are Unaccounted.

    Supervisor Weigle said this afternoon that so far he believed the Big creek loss of life would not reach over 13. He had talked with Milwaukee Lumber company’s representative and he had said nothing about missing any men, so it is thought that the thousand railroad laborers in the various camps along the new line being built into the Big creek timber district have been saved.
    Peter W. Schmidt, the cook at the government camp on Setser creek, where 30 men were reported dead, arrived here from Avery, saying that when he left there yesterday all the men but 15 had been accounted for. There were 75 at his camp.
    He said that a camp of 50 Bulgarians and Austrians not far from the Setser creek camp were missing and it is believed at the rangers’ headquarters at Avery that all have perished, but there is nothing definite. Survivors of a Japanese fire fighting crew came into Avery with the report that six of their countrymen had been burned to death.
    Schmidt was in camp Sunday afternoon with seven other men when the fire reached them. A regular hurricane warned them of the approaching fire and they left for the river. So fast did the flames travel that at times the trees over their heads were on fire. All were singed and burned. The shoes of one man were burned through.

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