On Sunday, August 26, 1926, Charles Hurlbut, a Lassen County Road department employee had made a working camp on Rice Canyon Road. In the afternoon, he built a campfire, and left it unattended to gather more wood. In the interim, an erratic gust a wind blew threw, sending embers from the campfire onto nearby dry bronco grass. A wildfire quickly erupted. There was nothing Hurlbut could do, but to drive frantically to Susanville to enlist aid. Some sixty men were recruited to fight the fire. Half of the fire crew consisted of employees of the Red River Lumber Company, as the company owned a tremendous amount of timber in the district. From Susanville the fire was a spectacular sight for its residents, as most of the Antelope Mountain went up in flames. One interesting facet in battling the fire was the use of backfiring. Charley Carpenter, a prospector, had a cabin at Miner’s Spring on Antelope Grade. Carpenter seeing the fire raging towards his place, lit a fire in the approaching direction, and it was enough to divert it from destroying his home. In all, some 22,000 acres were burned, making it one of the largest fires of the era.
The firefighters were able to keep the fire away from the ranches at the lower end of the valley. However, one ranch, belonging to Bob Wilson was not so fortunate. Wilson lost his house, his barn containing seventy-five tons of hay and some two hundred chickens. For the Red River Lumber Company their loss was substantial too, an estimated fifteen million board feet of timber, and to the lesser extent the former Conklin holdings at Jacks Valley.
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