MENACING FLAMES

On the morning of September 22, 1913, a fire started along Graham Hill Road near the Christian retreat Mount Hermon. The fire presumably began from sunlight focused through a discarded bottle. A noon time breeze quickly spread the flames in a southwesterly direction. By two o’clock the fire was “menacing the famous Santa Cruz grove of big trees belonging to the Welch brothers … The Southern Pacific company ordered every available man in the district between Boulder Creek and Watsonville to the scene …”  Employees of the Henry Cowell lime and cement company also joined the fire lines.

High temperatures and frequently changing wind direction added to the uncertainty for the 300 firefighters. Despite their efforts, the raging fire continued toward the “… famous Big Tree grove, farther east, in which General Fremont once camped in the days before the Bear flag was raised.”

This painting of the 1948 Pine Mountain Fire by my grandmother Ellen Osterberg Herman Hill provides an impression of what the 1913 fire through the San Lorenzo Canyon may have looked like.

The fire reached within 100 yards of Big Trees Grove. According to the Santa Cruz Evening News “A desperate stand is being made by the fire-fighters at a point across the San Lorenzo river opposite tunnel six. Here the fire is the hottest and burning fiercely and the heat is terrific. The nature of the country is rocky and steep and the opportunity of heading off the flames very slim, unless the wind changes.”

Valiant efforts on the part of the fire fighters and the successful use of backfires near the trestle helped divert the flames away from the resort. By evening the fire spread south past the grove, “over ridges and down slopes to the San Lorenzo river near Rincon, two miles from where it originated.”

Big Trees Grove was saved.

Sources: “Forest Fire Threatens Big Trees,” Sacramento Union, September 23, 1913; “Trees at Felton Endangered by Fire,” Santa Cruz Evening News, September 22, 1913; “Forest Fires Rage Near Giant Trees – Mount Hermon With Its Scores of Fine Residences Was Threatened,” The Independent-Record,  [Helena, Montana], September 23, 1913.