In the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt worried that unless America's forests were protected and regulated, the nation's forests would soon disappear.
After the Big Burn, Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot publicizes the selfless actions of the fire fighters who lost their lives in the blaze.
Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot saw fighting forest fires as being essential to the new Forest Service's mission.
At the turn of the 20th century, Gifford Pinchot was the nation's preeminent forester.
In 1910, a wildfire burned an area the size of Connecticut and killed at least 78 firefighters in just 36 hours.
