Around 1969 or 1970 I was on a district fire crew on the Clearwater Natl. Forest, the Canyon Ranger District.
We were sent on a fire on the district one night, at high altitude where western hemlock grow. There had been a lightning storm some days before and a large hemlock had been struck.
This was in the days of lookout towers and so this fire had been perking along for a while when we got there.
While digging a line around this fire we found some very interesting rocks, or so we thought. They looked a lot like clinkers out of a coal furnace, but had different hues, blue, green, and red. This is the first and only time this has occured on a fire I was on.
We collected some of these and took them back to the ranger station. One guy who was a geologist or tree expert, been too long now to remember what area of expertise he was specialized in, told us that the heat of the fire had caused minerals in the hemlock to basically fuse together into a mass. Fascinating!!
Anyway, these masses, which were probably about the size of a large orange, eventually just fell apart into dust.
Any one else out there who fought fires ever seen this? I would not have believed this but I was there to see this. I suppose minerals in the ground when the soil got hot could have also been a factor, but it makes sense if there were a lot of minerals in the water and soil.
So there is one for you. I'm not pulling your leg, either.
Jack
Potlatch, Idaho
