The Big Story - 1954-10-06 The Ugly Story of a Man [Charles Gleeson, Willows CA Journal]

English · Radio

This strange story is about a pyromaniac sets a fire in the Mendocino National Forest so he could get a job helping put it out. It raged out of control quickly, killing many. The fire began on July 9, 1953. There was a religious missionary group in the forest as they trained for overseas work in remote places where survival skills would be so critical. The missionaries assisted in fighting the fire under the direction of one of the Forest Rangers. He unfortunately lost his life in the fire. The 13 missionaries, who ranged in age in their 20s and 30s, were trapped. The winds were so strong that the flames spread quickly around them. They lost their lives. This was not the first time the missionary organization suffered tragedy. In 1950 they lost 10 missionaries and 5 children in a plane crash in Venezuela. The Mendocino Forest was big, and the location of the fire within it was between Powderhouse Ridge and Rattlesnake Ridge and became known as the “Rattlesnake Fire.” It became clear that the fire was created by arson. More than 1,100 acres were razed. There have been bigger fires, but the speed and loss of life so quickly made this one so tragic. More than 500 fire fighters were on the scene to bring it under control. Investigative work led to the arrest of 26-year-old Navy veteran Stanford Pattan. He was known to have problems, according to his father, always embellishing stories and disappearing into countryside forests for days at time. He lost his job which rattled him greatly because financial difficulties were piling up and he could never find a job to hold onto. A newspaper noted his wife’s comment “He wanted so badly to be a game warden and he just did not have the education to make it.” Strangely, he finally got a job, as a cook for the firefighters, near the conclusion of their operations. Just a month later, he was serving two consecutive 2-10 year terms for felony “willful burning.” Governor Edmund Brown issued a Christmas pardon to him and others in December 1965. Pattan passed away in 2009, age 82. The organization to which the missionaries belonged was New Tribes Mission. It survives today as the international organization Ethnos360. Reporter Charles Gleeson thought he was going to report on a somewhat routine fire, the first of the season. He was invited by the Forest Superintendent as a typical way to reach out and inform the local community. Gleesson thought it would be so routine he didn’t even bring pencil or paper with him. It grew into something quite different, and his reporting was picked up by the United Press wire service. In such a remote area, wire services could not support their own full-time reporters and the resources they required, so they had relationships with local newspapers around the country and the world to gather such news. The story was also presented on The Big Story television series. Gleeson died in 1988, at age 88.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.