Mann Gulch Wildfire Historic District

DOCUMENTING MONTANA’S CULTURAL RESOURCES

Cultural resources in the form of historic and archaeological sites offer tangible connections to those who came before us. The surrounding landscape provides perspective and context for understanding the significance of a cultural site—and sometimes the landscape is significant in and of itself. More than six million acres in Montana have been surveyed for cultural resources, yielding information on more than 67,000 documented sites.

Jessica Bush photo, 2016

Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, Lewis and Clark County

In the summer of 1949, a routine dispatch to battle a remote forest fire north of Helena quickly turned dire as 13 Forest Service firefighters lost a race for their lives against advancing flames. The lessons learned from events at Mann Gulch forever changed the trajectory of wildfire suppression and fire research.

Fifty years after the tragedy, significant landscape features – Mann Gulch, Rescue Gulch, the mouth of Meriwether Canyon, and Forest Trail #253 – were added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Mann Gulch Wildfire Historic District. While the district encompasses a fraction of total acres consumed during the fire, the landscape represents significant sacrifice and transformation.

Mann Gulch Fire 75th Anniversary – August 5, 2024

Learn more about this card and others in the Celebrate Montana Preservation series: https://mhs.mt.gov/Shpo/celebrate-preservation