When lightning flashed over the area of Blackwater Creek 35 miles west of Cody in the Shoshone National Forest on Aug. 18, 1937, an alpine fir 100 feet west of the creek became a matchstick.

Thousands of volts of heat and light unleashed from the heavens split the tree, creating wood shrapnel and starting a wildfire in a dry, heavily timbered area in the Absaroka Mountains.

For two days the fire slowly simmered, moving up a mountain slope and as winds hit it back down to the creek bottom.

An official fire note penned by U.S. Forest Service Assistant Chief of Fire Control David Godwin dated December 1937 states that on Aug. 20, U.S. Forest Service Supervisor Carl Krueger flew over the area, saw the smoke and flames, and estimated the fire to be the size of two acres in the creek bottom.

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