The modern Forest Service was created by the transfer of the national forest reserves from the United States General Land Office to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) by Congress in 1905. The USDA's Bureau of Forestry was renamed the Forest Service and assumed management of the reserves. Six district offices were created in western states in 1908 to distribute leadership outside of Washington D.C. The national forests (formerly the national forest reserves) were divided even further in following years and by 1930 there were 10 regional offices. The Northern Region, or Region 1, encompasses Montana and North Dakota along with parts of Idaho, Washington, and South Dakota.
Devastating fires in the summer of 1910 burned nearly 3 million acres in the forests of western Montana and northern Idaho. The loss of life and economic impacts caused by these fires highlighted the need for organized fire management within the boundaries of the national forests and greatly increased support for research and development of fire control methods. This interest included collecting data on the conditions most conducive to large fires and the possibility of predicting these fires. In the 1920s, Harry T. Gisborne became a fire researcher at the Priest River Experiment Station in Missoula, Montana. Using data collected from various regional sources, Gisborne helped develop the country's first fire danger rating system. Introduced in the 1930s, his fire danger meter was a portable device that used weather and fire fuel input to predict the probability of a forest fire. Other regions adopted similar methods and technology to develop their own meters and rating systems through the 1950s. It wasn't until 1958 that the idea of a fire danger rating system for the entire country became a primary objective. In 1972, the original National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) was released. The system saw various updates in subsequent years including full automation and revisions to account for climate variations. Currently, the National Fire Danger Rating System is utilized by the Forest Service to report fire danger to the public on a five level, color-coded scale. The current system uses weather, topography, fuels, and risks to determine fire danger potential.
This collection contains 11 volumes of fire danger summaries collected at various Forest Service stations in Montana and northern Idaho. Volume 1 contains summaries of rain, temperature, and relative humidity for stations in the Cabinet, Clearwater, Coeur d'Alene, Flathead, Kaniksu, Kootenai, Nez Perce, and St. Joe national forests. The summaries are for the spring and summer from 1912 to 1936. Volumes 2 through 11 include additional fire factors, including lightning, brush burning, visibility, fuel moisture, and wind. In addition to the forests included in Volume 1, Volumes 2 through 11 also include measurements for the Absaroka, Beaverhead, Bitterroot, Custer, Deer Lodge, Gallatin, Helena, Lewis and Clark, and Lolo national forests. Theses volumes have daily measurements done in the spring and summer, Volume 2 includes the measurements for 1935 and 1936, while the rest of the volumes are for a single year through 1945.
The volumes are arranged chronologically.
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana-Missoula.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright not transferred to the University of Montana, however, the information was likely collected by federal employees for the United States Forest Service.
[Name of document or photograph number], United States Forest Service, Northern Region Fire Danger Factor Records, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
These volumes were collected by Charles E. "Mike" Hardy from an unknown location or locations as part of his research for a report for the Forest Service on Harry Thomas Gisborne. In 1977, Hardy donated his research materials to Archives and Special Collections.
Gift of Charles E. "Mike" Hardy and the United States Forest Service, 1977.
There are no expected additions to this collection.
These materials arrived at Archives and Special Collections with the Harry Thomas Gisborne Papers (Mss 098) and the Charles E. Hardy Papers (Mss 072).
Archives and Special Collections also holds the Harry Thomas Gisborne Papers (Mss 098) and the Charles E. Hardy Papers (Mss 072).
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.