An Unlikely Safe Haven

As fires swept nearly all the country from Avery to St. Regis, people fled by jumping into rivers, sheltering in mine shafts, or running for their lives, while others sought escape on the railroad even when trains could not always outrun the flames. An engineer, C. H. Marshall, tried to stop for everyone stranded along his line but soon found it too dangerous to continue, turned the train, and raced toward a tunnel as the railcars smoked from the intense heat. He remembered a deafening roar and heat so severe that no one on the train could stand upright, yet all of his passengers survived. Another train found safety in the nearly two-mile-long Taft Tunnel, where men, women and children waited in the darkness for the raging fire to pass.

Montana · United States