by Louise Kingsbury, Station History Coordinator
Suppression of fire in forests was a priority of the Forest Service in the I920’s, but what forest managers needed was the power of a prophet: something to tell them quickly and simply days in advance what to expect so that funds, equipment, and personnel could be allocated to a firefighting job.
Foresters knew little about how to predict the behavior of a fire, the nature of its effects, and the means to control it. They guessed. But that wasn’t good enough for a young forester named Harry Thomas Gisborne, who in 1922 began a quest for accurate predictions about fire. Over the next 27 years, Gisborne’s research in the Northem Rocky Mountains resulted in development of many instruments to measure weather conditions and forest inflammability. Foremost was the Fire Danger Rating Meter, which revolutionized the management of millions of acres of land in the United States and abroad. And Gisborne’s plans for research facilities ultimately, after his death, led to establishment of the Missoula, Montana, Northern Forest Fire Laboratory, now the Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory of the Intermountain Research Station.
Foresters knew little about how to predict the behavior of a fire, the nature of its effects, and the means to control it. They guessed. But that wasn’t good enough for a young forester named Harry Thomas Gisborne, who in 1922 began a quest for accurate predictions about fire. Over the next 27 years, Gisborne’s research in the Northem Rocky Mountains resulted in development of many instruments to measure weather conditions and forest inflammability. Foremost was the Fire Danger Rating Meter, which revolutionized the management of millions of acres of land in the United States and abroad. And Gisborne’s plans for research facilities ultimately, after his death, led to establishment of the Missoula, Montana, Northern Forest Fire Laboratory, now the Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory of the Intermountain Research Station.
In 1935 when the Fire Danger Rating Meter was given its first full test on the fires in the Selway National Forest in Idaho, its success in correctly predicting the behavior of the fires suddenly made the system popular. Managers now had a way of planning ahead to assure that adequate personnel and supplies would arrive at a fire.
“The field is so new that we have nothing to help us except our own imagination and what little ingenuity we possess,” wrote Gisborne in 1927.
By all accounts Gisborne had great imagination and ingenuity. He was also described as an outspoken man not easy to work for, given to argumentation and sarcasm. But the same people also note that Gisbourne inspired a legacy of devotion and had a knack of selecting good people.
Gisborne was born in Vermont on September ll, 1893, the son of a lumberyard and planing-mill owner. He earned a degree in 1917 from the University of Michigan School of Forestry. He was a seasonal employee as a lookout in the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington before World War I. After serving in the war, he returned to the Forest Service in the Northwest.
In 1922 Gisborne began work in Idaho at the Priest River Branch of the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station (now part of the Intermountain Research Station). From the beginning he believed his research should have practical application. He wrote: “Fire research is intended to serve as directly as possible the fire-control men who must first be successful before any of the other arts or artistry of forestry can function with safety.”
Gisbome had three research priorities: measuring and forecasting fire conditions; assessing the relationship between lightning and fires; and forecasting rainfall and other fire-weather conditions. Gisborne established three fire-weather stations in the Kaniksu, Clearwater, and Nez Perce National Forests in northern Idaho in 1922. He discovered that evaporimeters, which were supposed to predict evaporation for the next day, had no value. He learned that relative humidity of air is not a good index of moisture content or inflammability of duff and other forest materials, but that temperature is an important variable in moisture content. Most important, he concluded that there was no one single factor that could be used to measure or predict forest inflammability.
His second priority, the relationship between lightning and forest fires, found him analyzing nearly 15,000 storms over 5 years in three Forest Service Regions and British Columbia. Gisborne’s study resulted in improved levels of protection from lightning fires by increased surveillance, knowledge of the difference between a “fire-starting” storm and a “safe’ storm, and more accurate 36-hour forecasts of StOrm occurrences.
Working with the U.S. Weather Bureau, Gisbome found that forecasting rainfall was the most difficult of his priorities. Although many people did not believe weather could be predicted months in advance, Gisbome developed a statistical method of showing the relative probability that tl1e following spring or summer would be wetter or drier than the previous one. In 1925 he announced the creation of a system for predicting rain fall monthly from April through September, based on 44 years of precipitation records.
Gisbome concluded that what forest managers needed was a simple and reliable device that expressed in one figure the results of many integrated factors, rather than depending on multitudes of time-consuming charts. By 1931, Gisbome had created a small cardboard envelope with windows and two slides and many variables to analyze. The factors produced six classes of fire danger conceming rate of fire spread and administrative action needed to cope with probable danger. Gisbome and others subsequently modified the meter. Today, computers have made the device even more effective.
In the summer of 1949, the Mann Gulch fire in the Helena National Forest in Montana took the lives of 13 of a crew of 16 firefighters. Afterward, Gisbome insisted on inspecting the scene of the fire, despite a heart condition and the re- luctance of his Station Director. On November 9, accompanied by a Forest Ranger, Gisbome drove to the site, then, over the Ranger’s objections, began walking. Late in the day, while starting to leave a resting place, Gisbome collapsed and died. He was 56 years old.
“The field is so new that we have nothing to help us except our own imagination and what little ingenuity we possess,” wrote Gisborne in 1927.
By all accounts Gisborne had great imagination and ingenuity. He was also described as an outspoken man not easy to work for, given to argumentation and sarcasm. But the same people also note that Gisbourne inspired a legacy of devotion and had a knack of selecting good people.
Gisborne was born in Vermont on September ll, 1893, the son of a lumberyard and planing-mill owner. He earned a degree in 1917 from the University of Michigan School of Forestry. He was a seasonal employee as a lookout in the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington before World War I. After serving in the war, he returned to the Forest Service in the Northwest.
In 1922 Gisborne began work in Idaho at the Priest River Branch of the Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station (now part of the Intermountain Research Station). From the beginning he believed his research should have practical application. He wrote: “Fire research is intended to serve as directly as possible the fire-control men who must first be successful before any of the other arts or artistry of forestry can function with safety.”
Gisbome had three research priorities: measuring and forecasting fire conditions; assessing the relationship between lightning and fires; and forecasting rainfall and other fire-weather conditions. Gisborne established three fire-weather stations in the Kaniksu, Clearwater, and Nez Perce National Forests in northern Idaho in 1922. He discovered that evaporimeters, which were supposed to predict evaporation for the next day, had no value. He learned that relative humidity of air is not a good index of moisture content or inflammability of duff and other forest materials, but that temperature is an important variable in moisture content. Most important, he concluded that there was no one single factor that could be used to measure or predict forest inflammability.
His second priority, the relationship between lightning and forest fires, found him analyzing nearly 15,000 storms over 5 years in three Forest Service Regions and British Columbia. Gisborne’s study resulted in improved levels of protection from lightning fires by increased surveillance, knowledge of the difference between a “fire-starting” storm and a “safe’ storm, and more accurate 36-hour forecasts of StOrm occurrences.
Working with the U.S. Weather Bureau, Gisbome found that forecasting rainfall was the most difficult of his priorities. Although many people did not believe weather could be predicted months in advance, Gisbome developed a statistical method of showing the relative probability that tl1e following spring or summer would be wetter or drier than the previous one. In 1925 he announced the creation of a system for predicting rain fall monthly from April through September, based on 44 years of precipitation records.
Gisbome concluded that what forest managers needed was a simple and reliable device that expressed in one figure the results of many integrated factors, rather than depending on multitudes of time-consuming charts. By 1931, Gisbome had created a small cardboard envelope with windows and two slides and many variables to analyze. The factors produced six classes of fire danger conceming rate of fire spread and administrative action needed to cope with probable danger. Gisbome and others subsequently modified the meter. Today, computers have made the device even more effective.
In the summer of 1949, the Mann Gulch fire in the Helena National Forest in Montana took the lives of 13 of a crew of 16 firefighters. Afterward, Gisbome insisted on inspecting the scene of the fire, despite a heart condition and the re- luctance of his Station Director. On November 9, accompanied by a Forest Ranger, Gisbome drove to the site, then, over the Ranger’s objections, began walking. Late in the day, while starting to leave a resting place, Gisbome collapsed and died. He was 56 years old.
Firefighter honor Gisborne with those killed at Mann Gulch
The Nation’s firefighters honored the Forest Service’s first fire scientist on May 8, 1991, when they included him in a memorial dedicated to those who have given their lives fighting wildland fires.
Just north of Missoula’s Aerial Fire Depot conifers surround a small hill and a rock wall built to resemble the scene where at Mann Gulch 12 smokejumpers and a forest guard gave their lives. Scattered along the base of the wall lie engraved stones marking the places where their bodies were found. In keeping with the re-creation of the scene, over the hill lies another stone marking the place where Gisbome died.
No tighter fratemity exists in the Forest Service than among the smokejumpers who have faced fear and close bnishes with death while fighting forest fires. So when Smokejumper Foreman and visitor center manager Wayne Williams approached the memorial committee and suggested that they include Gisbome, and then got a quick affirmation, the recognition could not have been greater.
Deputy Chief George Leonard dedicated the memorial while several hundred stood and listened in a cold spring drizzle. Northem Regional Forester John Mumma also spoke to those gathered Mumma pointed out historical significance of the Mann Gulch tragedy and the work of Gisbome in launching the Forest Service into a new era of fire research.
The Station is now working with the Helena Ranger District to place a simple monument on the site where Gisbome actually died on a steep hillside above the Missouri River.
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