Vol. 71 No. 3 (2023): NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics
Articles

Creeks and Peaks: Wildfire Name-Giving in the United States

PDF
  • Michael D. Sublett,
  • Jennifer A. Sublett
Michael D. Sublett
Illinois State University
Bio
Jennifer A. Sublett
Carson National Forest
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/names.2023.2484

Published 2023-08-22

Keywords

  • wildfires,
  • name-giving,
  • provenance,
  • classification,
  • toponyms,
  • United States
    • ...More
    Less

Copyright (c) 2023 Michael D. Sublett, Jennifer A. Sublett

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Wildfires pose a growing problem in the US and elsewhere. Many US wildfires acquire a name, and the naming of such fires is what this article chronicles. The centerpiece herein is a from-scratch, thousand-fire corpus that we created, for which we can defend the provenance of each fire name and from which we have extracted a tally of how many names derive from each of 43 source classes. The corpus is wide-ranging, with fires that burned in 4 different centuries, 22 decades, and all 50 states. Stream names (hydronyms) are the leading name source for fires in the corpus, followed by summit names (oronyms) and road names (hodonyms).

PDF

References

  1. Mile House (British Columbia) Free Press. 1983, June 15. “Swiss Fire Name Draws Fire”. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  2. Accuweather. 2018, August 1. “Sour Biscuit Fire and Not Creative Fire? How Wildfires Get Their Names”. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://abc7.com/wildfire-name-sour-biscuit-fire-accuweather/3862819
  3. Ahrens, Bill. 1980, July 30. “Hot Monikers: Naming Forest Fires Helps Eliminate Confusion”. Phoenix Arizona Republic. Accessed August 25, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  4. Brown, Matthew. 2022, February 24. “Disastrous Wildfires Globally Will Get Worse, UN Report Says”. Chicago Tribune.
  5. Buckley, Dan. 2017, August 23. “Incident Name Protocols”. National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group. NMAC Correspondence 2017–26. Accessed December 7, 2022.
  6. Cerabino, Frank. 2001, February 25. “Naming Flames is Hot New Way to Track Fires”. West Palm Beach (Florida) Post. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  7. Chilton, James. 2012, July 14. “How Wildfires Get Their (Sometimes Strange) Names”. Cheyenne (Wyoming) Tribune-Eagle. Accessed December 9, 2022.
  8. https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/how-wildfires-get-their-sometimes-strange-namesh
  9. Christensen, Matt. 2007, August 28. “What’s in a Name? Not Much, When it Comes to Wildfires”. Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  10. Cowan, Jill, and Matt Stevens. 2021, September 13. “How do Wildfires Get Their Names?” The New York Times. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/us/wildfire-names.html
  11. Dillard, Gabriel. 2002, August 3. “Flames’ Claim to Fame is Name Game”. Salem (Oregon) Statesman
  12. Journal. Accessed January 18, 2022. https://www.newspapers.com/
  13. Edwards, Eve. 2021, July 25. “Bootleg Fire Meaning: What is the Oregon Blaze Named After?” HITC. Accessed July 2023. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2021/07/25/bootleg-fire-meaning
  14. Engber, Daniel. 2008, November 17. “How Wildfires Get Their Names: The Story of Burnt Bread and Dirty Face”. Slate. Accessed July 25, 2022. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/11/how-wildfires-get-their-names.html
  15. “Feature Class Definitions”. 2022. HomeTownLocator. Accessed June 29, 2022.
  16. https://california.hometownlocator.com/features/feature-class-definitions.cfmh
  17. Foran, April. 1983, September 13. “Little Glamour Involved in Naming Fires”. Victorville (California) Victor Valley Daily Press. Accessed August 25, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  18. “General Instructions for Preparation of Form 929: Individual Fire Report”. 1945. National Museum of Forest Service History—Archive Record—Cathy Stewart Collection—Handbook. Accessed October 15, 2021. http://forestservicemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive
  19. Greene, David, and Steve Inskeep. 2015, August 26. “How do Wildfires Get Their Names? The National Park Service Explains”. Morning Edition (NPR). Accessed December 9, 2022. https://www.npr.org/
  20. Gudde, Erwin G. 1955. “Naming Storms”. Names 3, no. 1: 34–37.
  21. Guthrie, John D. 1936. Great Forest Fires of America. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture.
  22. Forest Service.
  23. Hobday, Alistair J. et al. 2018. “Categorizing and Naming Marine Heatwaves”. Oceanography 31, no. 2: 162–73.
  24. Holbrook, Stewart H. 1943. Burning an Empire: The Story of American Forest Fires. New York: Macmillan.
  25. “Individual Fire Report”. 1922. National Archives and Records Administration—Department of Agriculture—Forest Service—July 1, 1905-[?]—Region 4 (Intermountain Region). Accessed October 7, 2021.
  26. http://www.archives.gov/
  27. “Individual Fire Report (Hauser Creek)”. 1943. National Museum of Forest Service History—Archive Record—Harvey Mack Collection—Hauser Creek and Griffith Park Fires. Accessed October 5, 2021. http://forestservicemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive
  28. Kalispell (Montana) Daily Inter Lake. 1961, August 15. “Bulletin”. Accessed November 2, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  29. Kates, James R. 2010. “Naming the Forest Fire: Journalists Define the ‘Red Demon,’ 1871-1933”. Media History Monographs 12, no. 2: 1–18. Accessed February 27, 2021. https://www.academia.edu/3366537
  30. Lange, Josephine, and Josephine Gillespie. 2022. “Bushfire, Prescribed Burning, and Non-human Protection”. Geographical Research. Accessed September 14, 2022.
  31. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-5871.12558?campaign=wolearlyview
  32. Leibowitz, David. 2000, June 4. “Be There 1st, and Name that Fire”. Phoenix Arizona Republic. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  33. Lin, Summer. 2020, August 20. “How are Wildfires Named? What’s the Lightning Complex? Answers for California Fire Season”. Sacramento (California) Bee. Accessed August 23, 2021.
  34. https://www.sacbee.com/
  35. Linley, Grant D. et al. 2022. “What do You Mean, Megafire?” Global Ecology and Biogeography 31, no. 10: 1906-22. Accessed December 8, 2022. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/geb.13499
  36. “List of Key Onomastic Terms”. 2010. International Council of Onomastic Societies. Accessed October 19, 2022. http://icosweb.net/drupal/sites/default/files/ICOS-Terms-en.pdf
  37. Madison (Wisconsin) Capital Times. 2000, July 11. “Wildfire Names Mark the Spot”. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  38. Majors, Dan. 2002, June 20. “Fire Officials Now Name the Flames”. Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Post-Gazette. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  39. McClement, Fred. 1969. The Flaming Forests. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
  40. Muller, Seth. 2004, June 24. “Jacket Fire Left to Burn for Now”. Flagstaff Arizona Sun. Accessed February 4, 2022. https://www.newspapers.com/
  41. Netburn, Deborah. 2019, November 3. “There’s a Science, If Not an Art, Behind Those Blaze Names”. Los Angeles Times. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  42. Nuessel, Frank. 2015. “A Note on the Names for Winter Storms”. Names 63, no. 4: 242-45.
  43. Oklahoma City (Oklahoma) Daily Oklahoman. 1970, October 2. “Fire Victims Search Ruins for Memories”. Accessed August 25, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  44. Olson, Kaitlin. 2019, August 4. “Control of Wildfire Names Lies with Many”. Flagstaff Arizona Sun. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  45. Omi, Philip N. 2005. Forest Fires: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
  46. Pacheco, Walter. 2009, May 17. “Fire by any Other Name Still Burns”. Orlando (Florida) Sentinel. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  47. Popovich, Nadja, and Brad Plumer. 2022, October 2. “Millions of Homes Being Built in Harm’s Way: Areas More Likely to Have Wildfires See Development Growth”. Chicago Tribune.
  48. Pyne, Stephen J. 1982. Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  49. Racine (Wisconsin) Journal Times. 1894, July 28. “John Rowland’s Loss: Office, Residence and Newspaper Plant Consumed in the Phillips Fire”. Accessed April 29, 2022. https://www.newspapers.com/
  50. Rodkey, Christopher. 2005, August 28. “Forrest Ownbey a Legend of the Name Game”. Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  51. Ross, Kimberly. 2008, July 2. “Fire Monikers Tend to Come from Landmarks near Place of Origin”. Redding (California) Record Searchlight. Accessed February 23, 2022. https://www.newspapers.com/
  52. Santa Fe (New Mexico) New Mexican. 2002, June 20. “From Cheddar Cheese to Storm King, Fire Names Tell a Story”. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  53. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial Wildfire Occurrence Data for the United States, 1992-2018. 5th edition.
  54. Forest Service Research Data Archive. Accessed December 5, 2022.
  55. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.5h
  56. Silbernagel, Bob. 1994, July 6. “Colorful Fire Names Reflect State’s Unique Geography”. The (Grand Junction, Colorado) Daily Sentinel. Accessed August 25, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  57. Smith, Ericka Schenck. 2000, August 5. “Thought, Frustration Go into Naming Fires”. Billings (Montana) Gazette. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  58. Smith, Erika D. 2020, September 13. “Fire ‘Complexes’ are Giving Me a Complex”. Los Angeles Times. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  59. St. Joseph (Missouri) Gazette. 1980, July 31. “Forest Fire Names Easy in Arizona”. Accessed August 23, 2021.
  60. https://www.newspapers.com/
  61. Stevens, Matt. 2018, July 10. “‘416,’ ‘Witch,’ ‘Not Creative’: How Fires Get Their Names”. The New York Times. Accessed December 9, 2022.
  62. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/us/how-do-fires-get-their-names-nyt.htmlh
  63. Stewart, George R. 1941. Storm. New York: Random House.
  64. Stewart, George R. 1948. Fire. New York: Random House.
  65. Summers, Gamin. 2006, June 22. “What’s in a Fire Name? Almost Anything”. Flagstaff Arizona Sun.
  66. Accessed August 23, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  67. Sweeney, Don. 2018, November 12. “Did a Campfire Ignite the Camp Fire? How Wildfires Get Their Names”. Boise Idaho Statesman. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  68. US Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. 1905. The Use of the National Forest Reserves: Regulations and Instructions. Washington, DC: GPO.
  69. US Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. Fire and Aviation Management. ICS-209 Program (NIMS) User’s Guide. 2020. Accessed November 3, 2022. ICS-209_User_Guide_4.0_2020.pdf (nifc.gov).
  70. US National Interagency Coordination Center. 2022. Wildland Fire Summary and Statistics Annual Report 2021. Accessed June 30, 2022.
  71. https://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/intelligence/2021_statssumm/2021Stats&Summ.html
  72. Vanhorne, Scott. 2002, June 29. “Fire’s Name Sparks License Plate Rumor”. Barstow (California) Desert Dispatch. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  73. Victoria (Australia) Emergency Management. 2020. Joint Standard Operating Procedure. “Incident
  74. Naming”. Accessed March 22, 2021. https://files-em.em.vic.gov.au/public/JSOP/SOP-J03.02.pdfh
  75. Williams-Brackett, Kimberly. 2013, July 23. “Naming Wildfires”. Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  76. Wilson, Sam. 2017, August 23. “Who Decides What a Wildfire is Named?” Helena (Montana) Independent-Record. Accessed August 30, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  77. Yale, Samantha. 2008, July 12. “The Flames Need Names: Crews Choose Fire Labels Carefully”. Santa Maria (California) Times. Accessed August 25, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/
  78. Zelinsky, Wilbur. 1955. “Some Problems in the Distribution of Generic Terms in the Place-Names of the Northeastern United States”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 45, no. 4: 319–49.
  79. Zgusta, Ladislav. 1998. “The Terminology of Name Studies (In Margine of Adrian Room’s Guide to the Language of Name Studies)”. Names 46, no. 3: 189-203.