Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 3

By George R. Wolstad
(Division of Range Management)

Twenty-one years ago - in August 1939 - the following note was found stuck on a twig along the trail up Roaring Lion Creek on the Bitterroot Forest. The handwriting is Clarence Sutliffs; somewhat shaky, as he was in pretty bad shape.

After crashing with Dick Johnson while scouting the Roaring Lion fire by plane, he had crawled across the canyon to the trail, back-blazing with a jackknife as he went. He had first gotten Dick out of the plane and dragged him a safe distance in case the plane should burn.

I was in the range survey crew camped at the West Fork Ranger Station. "Reg" DeNio was chief-of-party. Other members of the crew were Rolf Jorgensen, Fred Haller, John Venrick and Eugene Larsen. Our cook was Mike Maier from Plains. We were called to go on the fire and joined firefighters enroute from Hamilton. We traveled at night.

Part way up the trail we met a CCC boy on the run. He and another lad had come down the trail and found Clarence. The other CCC boy stayed with Clarence. We pushed on ahead of the main crew. I stayed with Clarence and the others helped bring Dick to the trail. More help arrived and Dick was carried out, but Clarence "came to" sufficiently to ride a horse out. This in itself took a lot of "guts," as he was pretty badly shaken up and had several broken ribs.

This was my first major fire, and I believe the first time I met Clayton Crocker, who was fire boss. We were given the job of setting up the fire camp as soon as we arrived at the site, so that Mike could get a meal ready for firefighters coming off the line. The assurance given us that we could get some rest after camp was set up didn't work out, since no sooner had we finished this job than we were dispatched over the main ridge to the south to combat spot fires. Thus, a second night passed without sleep for us. The beds dropped to us for the third night looked awfully good as they tumbled out of the plane.

That was a memorable summer. Long hours on the job, in addition to the time spent on the Roaring Lion and other fires, brought my timeslip for August to 326 hours. No overtime in those days: And no regrets, either!

*****

To supplement the information provided by George Wolstad in his foregoing account of the Roaring Lion fire, the following is quoted from a memorandum prepared in April 1940 by Clayton Crocker, Fire Inspector:

Roaring Lion Canyon, the site of the accident, well deserves its name. It is a ditch, some 11 miles long and a mile deep. The canyon walls are jagged, granite cliffs, extending from the narrow canyon floor to bristling crags a mile high. The gradient of the canyon bottom is so steep that the creek is one cataract from end to end. At intervals the canyon narrows between precipitous walls, forming gateways perhaps a thousand feet deep and a little wider. It was just above such a gateway that Sutliff had selected the new camp site.

Upon approaching the site and flying between the rock walls to avoid the smoke column which roofed the canyon, Dick Johnson, star pilot of the Forest Patrol, and Clarence Sutliff in charge of Fire Control of the Bitterroot Forest, found that the fire had moved down canyon and was crowning furiously. Flames and billowing smoke and gases filled the valley amphitheater where the camp site was located. Fire shut off the upper canyon, forcing the plane to turn quickly for a retreat. At that moment the ship was in one of those canyon gateways - a narrow, or in terms of sea navigation, a strait. The ship was banked steeply to miss the near canyon wall and the fire. It had some 500 to 1,000 feet of air between its wheels and the tree tops. Horizontal space for the turn was ample but none to spare. Full power on the 330-horse-motor had many times before taken this ship out of such predicaments. When the turn was half completed and the ship had reached a point nearest the fire, a terrific rush of downdraft struck the ship pushing it straight down with four times the speed of an elevator. So great was this crushing influence that downward movement nearly equaled forward speed. As the plane settled, its circular course brought it nearer the steeply-rising canyon slope.

The downdraft was caused by two influences. The canyon gateway terminated on each side in a high peak, beyond which lay deep saddles. These saddles acted as sheers or funnels through which poured the prevailing wind, cooled by its movement over the high Bitterroots and rushing to lower elevations. The second influence was the terrific updraft caused by the inferno on the canyon floor. As the fire boosted millions of cubic yards of hot air skyward, more air was sucked downward through the saddles in ridges alongside and ahead. Combined, these made a downdraft seldom witnessed by man.

The moment the ship was engulfed in this earthward current, the pilot shouted to Sutliff to move back to help lower the tail. Fractions of a second later, as wings and treetops raced closer together, Dick called, "We're gonna' hit!" Sutliff braced himself for the shock by jerking himself between two bundles of sleeping bags. A tip of a tree snapped like a rifle shot as the right wing met its first obstacle. Then a higher tree at the top of a rockslide caught the same wing. Dick had reached for the switch - all went black as he touched the key. The shock of the heavy wing against the solid tree trunk threw his head against the side of the ship and he was "out."

The wing was sheared. The heavy ship plummeted forward at 100 miles an hour, spinning clockwise like a rifle bullet. Its nose plowed into the pile of boulders which made up the hillside. The impact telescoped the ship from nose to behind the pilot's compartment. The spinning motion added a twist which, under momentum of the heavily-loaded cargo compartment, wrenched the forepart of the ship one-halfway around. Pieces of motor, cowling, and even the tail settled over an area of half an acre. The twisted mass of wreckage rolled down the boulder slide until the stub of the left wing caught in a crevice and held.

Underneath a pile of beds, canned food, and tools, Sutliff opened his eyes and wondered what had happened. Consciousness returned and gradually he rationalized that he was imprisoned inside a steel cage, dripping with gasoline immediately in front of a running crown fire. Escape from this prison was difficult. The ship was crushed and upside down - his right foot pinned, and his whole body numbed. After a struggle the foot was loosened, badly damaged and nearly useless. At this point he could hear gasoline gurgling from mashed tanks. Oil dripping on the hot motor sizzled and crackled and the rolling billows of black smoke overhead, coupled with reflections of the fire, threw flickering shadows through the ripped cabin. It all spelled "fire." At any moment a spark from the crown fire or a burst of flame from the hot motor might ignite the gasoline drenched wreckage.

There was no hole through which to escape. With bare hands and whatever implements were hardy, he tore a hole through the ship's side and wormed his way out - dropping onto a mass of boulders. Outside the sight was more hideous - the fire was coming fast. Foot travel at best would be slow through the cliffs to the canyon bottom, some distance below. If he reached the bottom before the fire did, he would have to outrun the blaze down a trail that is barely passable, as it winds its way among the boulders. Escape from the scene did not enter into his thinking, although he realized the full danger in delaying departure from the wreckage. His concern was for Dick.

Working forward to the front of the ship and peering through a maze of tangled steel, fabric, and machinery, he saw Dick, unconscious or dead, hanging head down with blood streaming from face and body. Further investigation proved he was still alive, but so imprisoned and crushed amidst the snarl of wreckage that extraction seemed impossible. He hung upside down with feet fouled by heavy steel controls, the roof of the ship caved in against him, the dash shoved back, and the cargo shifted forward to pin his whole body in a vise-like grip. His head was several feet above the boulders. If released from the grip of the wreckage, he would drop headfirst and further injury was certain. To an excitable individual the predicament would have appeared hopeless - not to Sutliff. He grasped a jagged slab from a boulder and began pounding, twisting, bending, and tearing a hole through the framework. Almost frantically with the crudest of primitive instruments, he tore away the best and toughest steel that man has devised. Each time he swung his rock hammer, a splash of blood, like paint from a dripping brush, splattered the wreckage. Cuts on his arms were running red streams to his finger tips. He found difficulty too in bracing himself for a solid blow or heavy lift on the leg that had been damaged in the crash. Eventually, after minutes which must have seemed hours, a hole was mangled through the mess and the pilot was ready to be freed from the strangle hold of the wreck. Sutliff had salvaged a sleeping pocket (bed) from the cargo and spread this over the boulders to soften the blow when Dick dropped. He pried loose the last bar and Dick fell. The shock of the fall partly brought him to consciousness; this added to Sutliff s hopes.

Dick weighed 165 pounds, Clarence 135, but somehow Clarence tugged, lifted, dragged, and rolled him into and out of the pits and over the giant boulders to the foot of the hill. Sometimes they rolled and bounced together. Sometimes Dick was hoisted bodily out of these rugged pits. At the foot of the hill Clarence found an open spot surrounded by dense, but moist green brush on three sides and the rock cliffs on the other. It seemed the safest spot in sight from the standpoint of fire. Further advance toward the "shotgun" trail on the opposite hillside was shut off by a jungle of tangled spruce reproduction, willow, and down timber. Night was falling, and darkness would make further travel almost impossible for a man physically sound. Therefore, Clarence propped Dick against a big rock and crawled back to the wreck, dug a radio set out of the junk heap and vainly tried to contact the world outside. Failing in this, he returned to Dick and finding him still alive, set out for help.

With a jackknife in a bleeding hand, he started blazing a line from Dick's location to the trail. Scrambling through the brush thickets, under and over logs, he whittled marks to guide rescuers to the unconscious pilot: Crawling over rocks and snarls of brush, he reached the trail. Exhausted by extreme physical activity, and weakened by loss of blood, he dropped down for a moment's rest before starting the four-mile hike down the trail. He had barely laid down when he heard voices. These came nearer, and he called. Two CCC enrollees appeared. They had gone A.W.O.L. from the camp at the highway, and had gone up the canyon for pictures. Now they were fleeing, ahead of the fire.

Clarence ascertained that one had studied first-aid. Showing him the marks on the bushes, he sent him to care for Dick. This was not easy. The boy was reluctant to enter the jungle of fuel in the path of the fire. Neither did he relish the idea of going alone to a dead, or worse, a dying man in the darkness. However, he went under the persuasion and demands of Sutliff. Next, Clarence wrote a note describing the location where Dick could be found, asked that a horse be started for himself, if possible, to get over the treacherous trail, and ordered a stretcher, doctors, and men to get Dick. He dispatched the boy down the trail, cautioning him to go slowly and take no chances of injuring himself, and thereby delaying action.

This exhibition of cool-headed action undoubtedly is a mark of more than average ability to act and use judgment in an emergency. He took no chance on verbal messages. He distrusted human action in exciting circumstances. Also, he portrayed the true foremanship in forcing the boys to do his will against their fears and inclinations. Had he done less or otherwise, Dick, our star pioneer of the air in fire work, would not have lived. Sutliff could have saved himself, no doubt, without aid, had he not spent his strength and lost his blood in getting Dick away from the gasoline-drenched wreck which was so near the spark and flame of a raging forest fire.

As it developed, the CCC boy followed the knife marks through the timber and found Dick still spurting blood and unconscious, but alive. He applied pressure bandages and stopped the bleeding. The other boy delivered the note, and help arrived with a stretcher during the night. Clarence staggered down the trail a short distance, but found the going too difficult. His injured ankle was swollen stiff and his wiry legs no longer responded to the demands of his nervous energies. The loss of blood and effects of shock were taking hold. He made a few more notes of instruction in his notebook and lay down for a rest. The rescue party arrived during the night, and after giving complete instructions for Dick's removal, he consented to ride the horse to the "outside." Clarence did not know until the following day that the wind currents suddenly shifted after the crash, retarding the fire in its down canyon run to the extent that it did not reach the plane wreckage.

As a happy ending, Dick was flying supplies to firefighters within a month following the crash, and, in the co-pilot's seat as observer, was none other than Clarence Sutliff. "It's all a part of the job," Clarence states. He doesn't mention the spatters of blood left on each of the jackknife blazes he whittled to save Dick's life. That is outside the general conception of "the job."