,CaliforniaHISTORY AND GENEALOGY RESEARCH
THE 1961 HARLOW FIRE
NOTE: The Harlow Fire burned
20,000 acres in two hours, destroying 105 structures and
claiming two lives.
This is
one of the fastest spreading wildfires ever recorded.
HARLOW FIRE - Part - 1
The
day that the Harlow Fire made the big run from CHOWCHILLA
RIVER, burned
AHWAHNEE and NIPINNAWASEE, and came right to the
outskirts
of COARSEGOLD, I
had to be at the ELLIOTTS, and was going back to
our
ranch in MADERA COUNTY.
I could see that this fire was starting to burn
south
at a rapid rate, so 1
drove through AHWAHNEE and headed down to POISON
SWITCH
(on Road 600). I
felt that the fire and I were going to get to
POISON
SWITCH at about the
same time. The fire and I did get to POISON
SWITCH about
the same time and
there was a large green, grassy area there where
I parked
the pickup and
rolled the windows up so it wouldn’t catch fire.
There
was a highway
patrolman parked there and he drove off, dust
a-flying.
I grabbed my shovel
and got across the river and CROOKS CREEK to see
if any
sparks had come
across and I could stop them. But a whole shower
of sparks
came down and
very shortly I could see that it was a lost
cause. About
that time, Jim
KATES drove by in a pickup and he continued on
towards
AHWAHNEE right
through the flames. I thought if he can do it, I
can
too. I got in my
pickup and started out and I drove through a
wall of
flame near where the
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS is now.
Just
past the hall, I could see a woman was still there.
It was a woman we
had previously known; she had been
Missed when the people wee evacuated. I
knew that
to be hauled out of there
in very short order or she’d burn to death
because there
was a big, downed
bull pine behind her cabin. She was in her
nightdress;
I kept urging her to
get some clothes on and to grab her valuables
and I’d
take her out of there.
She said she didn’t want to leave. I told her,
“Lady,
if you don’t get some
clothes on and get your valuables, I’m just
going to
have to put you in the
pickup and haul you out like you are.” After a
long wait,
she did get some
outer clothes on and I got her in the pickup and
drove
her up to the MECHHI’
S store and left her there. I went back to the
woman’s
place because I had
seen a man across the street from her house who
looked
like he was going to
stay there and try to save his buildings. When I
returned,
it turned out the
man was one I had known all my life, Jim JORDAN.
HARLOW FIRE - Part -2
By
this time the fire was right
close to his dwellings and the power supply
was all gone; what little water
they had was in their tea kettles and pots.
He had mowed around his place
with a power mower and the grass was pretty
short. I told the family I
thought we’d be fine and we could probably save
their buildings. About this
time, a herd of cattle came up out of the FRESNO
RIVER to the fence with the
fire right behind them. I grabbed the axe out of
my pickup and cut the fence
down in several places so that the cattle could
get out to the road (Road 600).
They disappeared towards AHWAHNEE or
OAKHURST. By that
time, the fire had reached several buildings; the butane
tanks had caught and were whistling
as the butane burned. Right next to my
friend’s house was a horse
pasture and a couple of horses. The horses just
went berserk but they were
in a “fed off” pasture and I figured they were
safer there than any place
else, so we just left them. We did save my friend
’s house and that of the woman
he rented the place from. Across the street,
the bus driver HOLDSCLAW
had a house and there
was no one there. Jim Jordan and I also saved the
HOLDSCLAW house. These three
houses and a couple more were all the houses
left in Ahwahnee and Nipinnawasee.
When
I drove back towards ELLIOTT’S,
MECCHI’S store had burned, CROOKS store
had burned, and all the dwellings
along the way. In all that time, I never
saw a forestry vehicle in AHWAHNEE.
I found out later why. The (State)
Forest Service men had been
down towards the CHOWCHILLA RIVER. This fire had
swept over them and trapped
them in the CHOWCHILLA BASIN. (U.S.) Forest
Service did have a fire camp
on the WORMAN’S property with maybe
two-hundred-fifty men and vehicles.
When I drove in there and told them
there wasn’t much left of
AHWAHNEE or NIPINNAWASEE, they couldn’t believe
it.
Bob JORDAN had a big house just
past the store but it burned. There were
JORDANS who lived across the
Street who stayed and saved
two houses.
On
the third day of the Harlow
Fire, it was probably a quarter of a mile
north of Coarsegold and extended
from there north to the
Fresno rive. At 9o’clock in the morning a crew had
been assembled by Fritz KONKLIN
a forest ranger. When I showed up, he asked
if I would “fire” a bulldozer
line to the line to the Fresno River with a
torch. He sent along a Mexican
boy named Porfino “Porfy” GARCIA to help.
There
was a local man, Enos SHAUBACH
with a bulldozer and he started building a
line from where the highway
and the fire met above COARSEGOLD to the north,
toward the Fresno River. We
“fired” this line with a method used many times
by local firefighters. We set
the first fire well inside from the dozer
line; then “Porfy” came along
right at the fireline, setting backfires as
fast as he could walk. It took
about an hour and a half; we fired this line
clear to the FRESNO RIVER.
Fritz and the crews came along behind to see that
there were no “spots” or “slop-over
fires” on this line. When we got to the
bluff of the FRESNO RIVER,
Fritz stopped us from firing and said that Henry
BOHNA, who is a COARSEGOLD
resident, knew more about the area going down
into the river and that he
would fire that. The hope was to keep the fire on
the east side of the river.
We
held up firing on down the
fire line while Henry fired way back in the
fire to pull the fire away
from us. Things didn’t work out just as planned
as the fire crowned up through
the bull pines and leaned over the
FRESNO RIVER. It set fires
in one-hundred places on the north side of the
river! Our bulldozer man had
anticipated this and had his tractor on the
other side of the river. He
was able, on his own, to contain the fire on the
north side of the river! After
that, we fired the fire line on down into the
FRESNO RIVER and this contained
the HARLOW FIRE on the south side towards
COARSEGOLD.
Excerpted from “AS WE WERE TOLD” A publication of the Coarsegold Historical Society, it is an oral and written history of Eastern Madera County California. It is a wonderful book and a great resource. There may still be copies available.
submitted by Harriet Sturk
HARLOW
FIRE & MARIPOSA COUNTY
Part -1-
Another Perspective
The
HARLOW FIRE started in MARIPOSA
COUNTY and burned south and east to the
top of DEADWOOD MOUNTAIN
at COARSEGOLD. Approximately 250 homes were
destroyed. The little town
of NIPINNAWASEE, about nine miles above OAKHURST
on Highway 49, was leveled
except for the school and one house. The school,
first opened in 1912, was named
after Craig CUNNINGHAM who was the
Superintendent of Schools of
MADERA COUNTY at the time the school was built.
I went to school there in 1916.
This school has more recently been moved to
OAKHURST to the SIERRA HISTORIC
SITES MUSEUM..
The Harlow Fire started coming southeast. Instead of backfiring in front of it, the firefighters backed off and tried to build a fireline to hold it. The State didn’t believe in backfiring then so the fire got such a start they just couldn’t stop it. When they finally did stop it, it was in the area of the top of DEADWOOD and Highway 41, on the south side of DEADWOOD MOUNTAIN.. My brother, Ned, and I had a sawmill at AHWAHNEE and I had a sawmill at AHWAHNEE and the fire burned it, along with all the lumber, all the logging Equipment, and our house.
Bill HULL and the KISER boys saved the school; the boys were high school age. Some of the personal suffering can be described like this: I couldn’t get any news about my mother or brother and it wasn’t until the next day that I learned they had gone near a pond until they could get to OAKHURST to spend the night.
My
mother lost her house and
everything else. My brother had a pressure
system on the well; he had
lots of water in the well, but when the power
line burned through and dropped
down, that was the end of the power. He
never knew where it came from,
but there was a big piece of tarpaper roofing
that came through on the wind.
It was on fire and landed on the roof of his
house. Everything was so hot
that when it hit that roof-- woof!!! They were
lucky to save themselves! They
came down to the old reservoir across the
road from the
ROUNDHOUSE. Lots of people
went to that reservoir; if it got too hot, they
could wade into it and save
themselves.
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Mariposa County History and Genealogy Research
November
4, 2002
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