A two-mile trail leads to the Pulaski Tunnel, where during two days in August 1910 Ranger "Big Ed" Pulaski, in the midst of a raging inferno, saved the lives of all but 6 of his 45-man crew. The firestorm that Pulaski and his crew survived was the climax, "The Big Blowup," to the summer-long fight against hundreds of fires burning in Idaho and Montana. Their experience, and the story of the 1910 fires, changed the way the public viewed forest fires and the way public agencies responded to them. During the summer of 1910, forest fires were everywhere in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains of northern Idaho; for weeks there had been no rain, the woods were extremely dry, and intense heat combined with strong daytime winds scattered the fires in all directions while crews of several hundred men worked twenty-four hours a day throughout the mountains trying to hold them back. Fires like those that trapped Pulaski’s crew were not unique, as fires have swept through these forests for thousands of years, and healing fire scars in the growth rings of thick-barked trees such as ponderosa and western larch show repeated patterns of intense burning; many area plants and animals depend on fire for survival.