High country still shows scars after 40 years
—Photo courtesy Bonner County Historical Society & Museum<br>This aerial photo, taken in 1967, shows the Sundance Fire spreading its destructive reach up multiple draws and valleys in the high country of the Selkirk Mountains.
SANDPOINT — Two deaths. Ten million board feet of timber. Almost 56,000 acres of forestland left charred in its aftermath.
Exactly 40 years ago today — Aug. 29, 1967 — fire crews in North Idaho believed the week-old blaze caused by a lightning strike on Sundance Mountain had been contained after burning only 35 acres of Selkirk Mountains high country. By the following day, however, the fire had jumped lines and went on to burn a total of 2,000 acres.
Two days later, winds up to 95 mph had fanned Sundance into a firestorm that raced across the drought-fueled landscape. By the evening of Sept. 1, 1967, the fire was consuming undergrowth and timber alike at a rate of one square mile every six minutes.
In Sunday's Bonner County Daily Bee, father-and-son correspondents Bob Gunter and David Gunter team up to present first-hand accounts from the people who experienced the Sundance fire, along with never-before-published photos of the blaze and its aftermath, compliments of the Bonner County Historical Society and Museum.
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