This was the week of the Big Burn in 1910, when the West exploded.

Thousands of fires ravaged millions of acres, killing 85 people in western Montana and northern Idaho. The flames reached their peaks on Aug. 20 and Aug. 22 before snow, rain and man began to douse them.

These were noteworthy times in Montana and around the world. It was the year the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by a Chicago publisher. In April, Mark Twain died at his home in Connecticut.

In a two-day span in May, the first filings for farms on the newly opened Flathead Reservation were recorded in Missoula; Glacier National Park was created by Congress, and Missoula's electric streetcar system was launched.

Above it all, Halley's Comet was making its first visible appearance over earth in 75 years, and its last for another 76.

On Aug. 26, four days after the wildfires began to subside in Montana, a girl who would become known as Mother Teresa was born in Macedonia.

A week later, Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show made its final appearance in Missoula.

Aug. 20-21, 1910

Fires that have simmered in the parched mountains are whipped by what will be called the strongest winds to ever blow in these parts.

Between 1,700 and 3,000 individual fires are burning. Many now merge to form a front 50 miles long, sending entire towns on both sides of the Bitterroot Range fleeing.

Wallace, Idaho, burns to the ground. On the Montana side, Taft, DeBorgia, Henderson and Haugan are all destroyed. Most of those killed are firefighters. Some victims died by their own hand to escape the horrific flames.

Many are burned beyond recognition.

It'll be dubbed the largest fire in American history. The most severe damage is wreaked on the Coeur d'Alene National Forest in Idaho, north and south of what's now Interstate 90, and along the St. Regis River in western Montana. But fires blaze elsewhere.

Aug. 21, 1910

The situation in the upper Bitterroot is "very serious" as flames lap over the divide from the Clearwater in Idaho. There's anxiety over a crew of firefighters at Lost Horse.

"Eighteen men have come out, but the rest are unaccounted for," the Missoulian reports.

The Big Blackfoot Milling Company in Bonner sends 125-150 men to fight a blaze near Potomac.

Aug. 22, 1910

A fire started from sparks from a threshing engine roars seven miles south of

Bozeman. A sawmill and 1,500 head of sheep are threatened. Some 3,000 sheep have been evacuated.

In the Great Falls region, the famous old mining camp of Neihart is in danger. Smoke settles over the Judith Basin from a regenerated fire in the Little Snowies as well as grain field and prairie fires.

The forestry service has more men on fires in the Flathead than on the Big Burn. A supervisor returns to Kalispell from Stillwater with word that 30 men who were believed to be lost had survived by getting behind a fire into the burnt-out area.

Libby officials call on Gov. Norris for assistance. Flames lick within four miles of town.

"In the mountains between Lincoln and Sanders County, almost the whole country is in flames," reports say.

A brush fire races across the southeast end of Tacoma, Wash., blown by 35 mph winds.

Aug. 23, 1910

Fires now burn in Elk Park, north of Butte; in the Beartooths near Red Lodge; and around Polaris in the Big Hole basin. Redding, Calif., is digging in against flames.

Fires threaten Portland's water supply.

Aug. 25, 1910

A headline out of Washington: "Cascades Burst Into Flames."

Kim Briggeman can be reached at 523-5266 or at kbriggeman@missoulian.com.