"Fires of yesterday and last night have swept practically all the country from Avery to St. Regis. Nothing could have lived in the mountains last evening except for the tunnels." - E. J. Pearson, Chief Engineer, Puget Sound Railroad
Fleeing from the fires, people jumped into rivers, sheltered in mine shafts or ran for their lives. Others chose escape on the railroad, but sometimes even the trains could not move faster than the fires.An engineer named C. H. Marshall tried to stop for everyone stranded along his line, but soon found it too dangerous to continue. He turned the train and sped toward a tunnel with the railcars literally smoking from the intense heat. Marshall remembered the deafening roar of the fire with heat so intense that no one on the train could even stand upright. Remarkably, all of his passengers made it out alive.
Another train found safety in the nearly two-mile-long Taft Tunnel. As you enter the tunnel, imagine the incredible noise, fear and heat that the men, women and children on board experienced as they waited in this dark refuge for the raging fire to pass.
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