By National Photo Company - Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6992872 Aunt Beulah's Memory "The forest fires were very bad that year.  A number of men’s lives were lost in this part of the country.  In one instance, Papa’s good judgment in using the “back-fire method” (only one other man stood by him in this decision) prevented serious losses in the Blue Creek area."   Beulah Stowe was born on the Stowe farm located on Tubb Hill above Coeur d'Alene Lake May 6, 1910.  In memories collected by her son, Larry Strobel, in 1968, she wrote the paragraph above.  Of course, she was less than four months old when the fires occurred that summer but the devastation and years of recovery certainly made an impact on her life and her family. Beulah Stowe Strobel,  Stowe Memories of Coeur d'Alene  1968 A collection of stories written by Beulah Stowe Strobel and her sister, ...

The recent flooding destruction and tragedy in the hill country of central Texas shows us that people often choose to live close to danger. Closer to home, remember when " Mount St. Helens erupted for nine hours on May 18, 1980 destroying plant and animal life in the surrounding 230 square miles of forest and killing 57 people. In this post-eruption image, Spirit Lake is buried by debris." Famously, Harry Truman refused to leave his home on Spirit Lake, and is presumably buried under the debris shown in the photo below. Mt. St. Helens from  https://catalog.archives.gov/  via Picryl.com Recovery from this utter destruction seemed impossible, but the next photo shows that nature is creative and resilient—and so are we humans.  Aerial photo of Mount St. Helens (center), with Mount Hood (in the distance, far left), Spirit Lake (on left with floating log mat), and St. Helens Lake with a little ice cover (lower left). USGS image taken by K. Spicer on June 6, 2024. Public Domain...