On Thursday, June 24, 1926 the City of Susanville ordered a ban on fireworks due to the high fire danger. The city, as a precautionary measure, asked the Lassen County Board of Supervisors to burn the vegetation bordering the city limits.

The next morning around eleven a.m. all hell broke loose when a forest fire broke out about four miles south of Susanville. By noon the Roy Ramsey ranch house (known today as Les Allen) was in the fire’s path. Fortunately, the nearby Ramsey irrigation ditch was able to fend off the fire. Next in harms way was the Lassen County Hospital which narrowly escaped the fire’s fury.

In effort to keep the fire from reaching town, a back fire was set. It was not good. It did the opposite, starting a branch fire just below Hobo Camp, and in the worst case scenario, jumped the Susan River and headed towards Inspiration Point. A fire crew was stationed on Quarry Street, at the base of the bluff as attempt to keep the fire under control, though a flare up nearly threatened the Elks Lodge. On the other hand the timber on Inspiration Point bluff was not spared. By Monday the fire was finally suppressed. Amazingly, not a single structure was lost, though the Red River Lumber Company did loose considerable timber.

One may ponder why I used these two photographs for illustration. If you examine them, the 1915 shows the bluff forested, the latter thirty years later, with pine trees missing due to the aftermath of the fire.

Tim