mountainecho.com

On a dog day afternoon 20 years ago, a small black column of smoke appeared in the sky of the intermountain area, and what followed was a firestorm like the area had never seen before.
The first call reporting the infamous Fountain Fire was logged in at 12:50 p.m. on Aug. 20, 1992, from the U.S. Forest Service’s Hogback Mountain Lookout.
The report said the column of smoke was on 299E near the “drinking fountain” and so it was named the Fountain Fire.
Before it was extinguished, the fire burned on both sides of Highway 299 E from Round Mountain to the west side of Burney forcing the displacement of almost 8,000 people.