Camp 17 Fire Hit by Tree Limb Fatality 1922

Frank Valench, a logger with the Mineral Lake Logging Company, was struck and hilled by a tree branch while helping suppress a fire near Camp 17, Ashford, Washington on June 1, 1922. About 200 men were engaged in suppressing the fire that had started that morning and was fanned by steady winds. Without warning, a limb or top of a snag burned through and fell, striking Valench. Some accounts indicate he was struck on the head and killed instantly.