"Hidden Fire: The Great Butte Explosion" (2007)

Directed by Gus Chambers
In 1895, Butte, Montana, "the richest hill on earth",endured a series of massive explosions that was deemed "the greatest calamity in the history of the West" by newspapers in its time. The event inspired songs, turned ordinary citizens into heroes, and turned one man into a murderer.
This film won a Northwest Emmy Award in 2008 for Individual Accomplishment in Audio.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Gus Chambers has produced award-winning films for MontanaPBS for over twenty years. Chambers makes films about the rich history and culture of Montana.
Follow THE MONTANA EXPERIENCE on Facebook -
/ themontanaexperience

[@joerice7147]

We live in Ireland. My wife , who is from County Cavan, had three grand uncles who worked in Butte. Their names were Roe, and emigrated from County Monaghan Ireland. She also has a connection, through marriage we think, wit a guy who also worked in Butte. He was known as ‘big Jim Marron’. Probably no one interested in this but decided to post it anyway, just to say we still remember them here at home. JR Navan Co. Meath

[@cathyl2338]

We are interested. They mattered and helped build our country. 🇺🇸

[@dougholliday467]

I am interested Joe & Family. Thank you so much for this very important post. God Bless

[@Redgolf2]

The tune played by the piper is an old Irish air, Na Conneraí

[@yamahale]

my paternal grandmother came from Cootehill in County Cavan, and my gramps came from Monaghan!

[@buddybbuddyb3687]

My Great Grandfather owned a cow in Cersiveen.

[@jessbellis9510]

Couldn't help but tear up at the loyal dog who stayed with his human throughout everything, refused to leave him and died of a broken heart by his grave. And Jim the horse too - I'm so happy he got to live out his life.

[@jameskennedy6982]

Proud to say my Dad was a Captain on the Butte Fire Dept., i currently serve as a Fire Commissioner in Butte.

[@pajiad191]

bless yourand your father and Butte, MT

[@donnacaldwell6478]

Thank God for people like your father!

[@nenblom]

Great job!! 👍👍

[@sksksksl]

Thank you for your sacrifice for others.

[@dats3]

I've vacationed in Bozeman and Missoula at least 20 times over the years and I'm sorry to say I've only visited Butte once and that was only to gas up and eat. I had no idea of the history of the city and I'm sad for the suffering the people there have endured. However, it's good to know that there are such brave men and public servants like you and your father. Stay safe.

[@patriciayoung3267]

Beautifully done. Respectful and informative. My brother is a retired Fireman and these brave Men and Woman Who run in to harm's way deserve much more recognition than they will ever get.

[@vincentrusso4332]

Thanks to all who put this wonderful documentary together. How about that dog....man's best friend.

[@PaulPassarelli]

If you were to ask me to recall something from 1895 I would have responded with the discovery of X-rays. This documentary added to my knowledge of history. Good job.

[@jed-henrywitkowski6470]

There's x-Rays, because alpha rays don't take crap!

[@FloozieOne]

I love that you tell stories about things I never heard of before. They are truly terrible disasters and yet it has all been forgotten as all disasters are when enough time has passed. There should be a special museum for occurrences like this, perhaps in a big city so people can get there, and the lessons and victims can be remembered.

[@cpcattin]

I agree with the out of balance sound levels. Background music is for the background.

[@kevintennant7701]

Excellent documentary!! I cried when the 1895 firefighters got gravestones. Very emotional. Wonderful program.

[@toter-drache]

Jim the Horse should have had a place at rest with his fellow Fireman. He served his time and was injured in Duty .

[@EDDIELANE]

I’m glad he got to wander around and be given sugar.

[@marybears5533]

We lived in Butte when my husband went back to college in retirement from 1995 to 2000 and I did lots of exploring into the history of the town while we lived there but never heard a word about this...Butte is a town of itself...

[@GottaWannaDance]

I bet. Montana certainly doesn't want to get folks thinking about what happens when corporatists have control over peeps.

[@sphinxrising1129]

Firemen, people who run into what others flee from. Heroes by any other name.

[@ClearTheRubble7]

Very well done documentary! I think one of the best ways to learn history is to hear the stories of isolated, relatively unknown events like this one, because it gives you a real flavor of what life was like in the past and in a particular region. (By "unknown" I mean "not listed in public school history books".) I live in the west (New Mexico) and traveled through California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota by bicycle, with friends, a long time ago, stopping and camping at historical sites like Virginia City, Big Hole Battlefield and White Bird Hill, where we learned about historical events while experiencing the actual terrain and surroundings where the events happened. This documentary has brought those memories back to my mind...

[@pilotmike7569]

That must have been an amazing experience for you to have visited all those places and to have met all the local people and heard their stories, thanks for sharing😃

[@ClearTheRubble7]

@@pilotmike7569 Yes, it was! 🙂 Most of the people along the way were pretty friendly, and a few let us camp on their land. A South Dakota family let us stay in a trailer home parked on their front lawn. They "owned" a tame golden hawk (or eagle?), and let us wear a falconry glove so that the hawk would land on our arms. Fantastic experience! I saw what looks like videos about Poland on your channel. (?) My mother, my sister and I didn't visit Poland, but we traveled close to the Polish border, in Germany, where my mom was raised, and where I was born. Recently we discovered (and confirmed through our own DNA tests) that our mom was half Polish. We found traveling through Europe as exciting and historically interesting as traveling through the western US. My sister and I have our hearts in two continents, lol.

[@pilotmike7569]

@@ClearTheRubble7 How kind of you!😊💕 Germany and Western Poland have very similar climate (Eastern Poland has a bit more continental climate although the differences are minute), but otherwise there are a lot of similatities!😀 Thank you for sharing your beautiful travel and family experiences (I l loved the falcon part a lot!!!) and for visiting my channel!😊🕊💕 Hope to see you soon!🤗💖

[@Smitty54]

I'm 66 and thanks to you looks like I got alot more history to learn 👍 Smitty out 😃

[@gabe-po9yi]

There were many heroes and heroic actions, but none compared to the unharmed firefighter and volunteer firefighters who entered the scene under threat of another explosion and through downed electrical wires and ultimately extinguished the fire. What great men.

[@cw4608]

Well done, excellent narration, and the photographs were wonderful. So sad for all involved. Happy for Jim!

[@dalekundtz760]

Rest in peace you brave and devoted men who respond even to this day when the bell tolls.

[@jwildonger2158]

Thank you for this INCREDIBILY POWERUL DOCUMENTRY .May these brave individuals find peace.

[@liezelbickle9430]

I feel the same way. May their memory never fade, and their bravery be remembered till all are one.

[@Duskyberry]

Jim survived!!! ♥♥♥

[@leehilton9932]

Thanks for sharing this. I lived in Bozeman and went to Butte a few times. Even did the mine tour at the orphan girl mine and never heard or seen anything about this.

[@GottaWannaDance]

Lee, probably never heard about it because they played music so loud back then that many people didn't hear anything about anything! 🤷🏾‍♀️

[@leehilton9932]

@@GottaWannaDance possibility. Just thought it odd, with all the history there and touristy stuff.

[@wa7shf]

They will never send a Firemen to Hell because they will put out the fire.. I had 15 wonderful years as a Fireman. I gained the rant of Lt.....

[@airplanemaniacgaming7877]

thank you for giving Hell's flames the treatment they deserve: a watery grave.

[@montanasnowman3138]

I lived in a brothel in Butte Montana. A block away from the m&m. It was a good life.

[@liezelbickle9430]

Thank you, fore sharing their story with me. I will never forget what i've learned.

[@notthatdonald1385]

Thank you for posting this.

[@aoilpe]

The voice of the narrator could be raised a bit more over the music 🎼🎵 🎶

[@jordanhicks5131]

Why can't you guys hear? I'm deaf as shit and I can hear just fine

[@tundrawomansays5067]

Turn on the Closed Captioning on your screen.

[@lisaammons5548]

How come Mr. Street never mentioned this tragedy in his Butte/Silverbow history class? He knew everything about Butte's history but I definitely would have remembered this. I loved this documentary and learned a lot from it that I never knew about Butte, MT. Apparently a truly forgotten story. More documentaries like this might have gotten me a better grade back then. And yes we had VHS at the time so it was possible!

[@Skipbo000]

you missed that day,

[@julierobinson3633]

The sad thing is the explosion on Beirut in 2020 was caused by almost exactly the same thing - a small fire in a warehouse setting off a large amount of stored highly explosive material that should never have been there. And there too, a fire crew were wiped out, civilians injured, a city devastated. People never learn...

[@terriecotham1567]

Found this to be well done history should never be lost to the sands of time, What unamazing story love how Jim lived out his last days free to rome around the town at will,

[@Redgolf2]

The air played by the piper at 50 minutes is an old Irish air called Na Chonneraí, I love to play it in memory of friends that have died.

[@sksksksl]

Wonderful documentary. Thank you.

[@monkg3i]

i didnt cry the whole documentary until i heard the dog stayed by his owner's grave until death

[@Joeybagofdonuts76]

The loyalty of a newfound can't be understated.

[@AdstarAPAD]

Someone needs to sack the person who decided it would be a good idea to have distracting music playing too loud in the background causing people to become exhausted trying to focus in on the actual story...

[@jturtle5318]

I turn it down and read the captions. It's annoying.

[@lynnsevelin7118]

so well done, was crying my eyes out at the end

[@Trouttiger]

What an amazing story thank you they where true heros.

[@vincentpellegrino789]

Very well done documentary.

[@beverlyarcher3744]

I HATE VIDEOS WHERE THE MUSIC IS LOUDER THAN THE PPL TALKING as long as there's money the guilty will never pay and the innocents will never rest

[@jenmb2679]

IKR

[@kirkmattoon2594]

I don't know what you used to watch this, but the voices were perfectly audible on my PC. Are you only hearing one channel?

[@JamesAllmond]

@@kirkmattoon2594 I actually do sound, and edit a lot video. Whoever mixed this did they same thing modern music producers do, make the music and voice the same level. TV thinking also, level out all the sound. Great if a sit com, not so good when you try to gets artsy. If you have hearing issues, voice will be tricky to discern from the music. Great video though, but less volume on the backing sound would help. From 2014 too, that explains a lot too.

[@kirkmattoon2594]

@@JamesAllmond From 2007, according to the title. Which might explain a lot except that when I listen through my PC's sound card the music is well in the background without my adjusting anything. It seems to be in mono; at least there is no obvious separation. My earlier guess that people were only hearing one channel is probably wrong. So why am I not hearing the narration drowned out by the music, like others who have commented here?

[@freedapeeple4049]

It's a tech mismatch. The equipment it was created on processed the information differently than the system you are playing it on (perhaps your system is expecting a digital signal and the original used analog, or something like that). On some systems it sounds fine, others have similar problems to yours.

[@luv2bmomngrandma1]

Thank you for this story. Amazing to watch.

[@dBREZ]

I've never heard about this...Thank you for sharing.

[@deborahwood9304]

Wow! incredibly informative and heart wrenching. I didn't weep at the savagery of the very greedy corporate capitalist puppet government society we STILL continue to tolerate, but I wept for the firemen and horses and the innocent lives lost. I wept for the courage and sacrifice.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

All I could think of was how corporate greed has defined our country since the beginning.

[@Skipbo000]

dramatic much? why are you "weeping" over a documentary about a town u are not from about people you do no know about an event over a century old? Some counseling, perhaps, may help.

[@donnebes9421]

When it comes to big business and politicians it’s the same now as it was then and always will be.

[@GottaWannaDance]

If you don't want us to hear what's being said, cut the vocals instead of playing music so loud to muffle the voices out!!!!

[@Crashing310]

Hopefully the sisters never wrote another song.

[@GottaWannaDance]

Or never sang it, at the least.

[@allandavis8201]

Whoever is “singing” it sound like a cat wailing and howling at the same time, horrendous song.

[@billolsen4360]

Agreed

[@itsacorporatething]

It was like singing a Wikipedia article.

[@everydayhero5076]

Amen.

[@robertmoore7907]

I can't hear the narration with ghat loud music in the back ground.

[@billolsen4360]

Lots of movie makers do that. Don't know what's wrong with them.

[@tundrawomansays5067]

Turn on the Closed Captioning on your screen.

[@amyjojinkerson6745]

that was one hell of a blast

[@zambalasenpen409]

Great story of Butte. ♥️🙏

[@tommysdreamhamilton3216]

Ty so very much indeed.

[@grahamsawyer831]

great, great documentary, stirring stuff. sometimes I think our most unsung heroes are from the fire service. we do need the CSB safety videos to get round to this one though...

[@PapaTanGh0stNI9htM4R3S0nMaInSt]

Noway, I was defo born in the wrong age to have these Victorian/ Edwardian depictions gives us a great insight into how hard life really was then.

[@nerolsalguod4649]

Only heard scant mention of this when in Butte. Went there several times. Lived in Helena then and later in Wolf Creek. Horrible disaster , though rich fat cats always hurt others in thier pursuit of thier greed and granduer.

[@JosephKulik2016]

Dear Nerol: "Rich fat cats always hurt others" because the compliant American public is just so eager to bend over and take their abuse. ... [e-mail]

[@billolsen4360]

Plus local government asleep at the wheel. Deadly combination.

[@ixlr8677]

and the people in power let em do it with a good palm greasin.

[@brt-jn7kg]

Pay attention Hollywood this is how you do a documentary

[@GottaWannaDance]

Without the music blocking the voices, though.

[@kristinebailey6554]

Well done!

[@SierraThunder]

I watch videos about calamities & events here on YT all the time, and there's one thing that I always notice, how the time, the date or certain numerical factors will always add up to the number "9". In numerology 9 is always the number of significant change, be it a positive or negative occurrence. In this case, it happens to be the time the explosion happened, (10:08pm) which would add up as 18, and 1+8=9. I first got into numerology after experiencing first hand, the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 here in California, and how all of the factors kept adding up to that one number, the second thing was a book on numerology & other esoteric subjects that someone just happened to leave sitting on a bus bench that I walked by every day, that was fairly odd in itself. But after reading that book & studying on it ever since, I've found numerology to be a pretty accurate barometer of historically significant events. Sadly, like this one in Butte, Montana, most of these events tend to be negative, but numerology isn't necessarily prophetic, (and I personally, don't really give much creedence to prophecy), but if an event happens that seems to be historically life changing, then the number 9 will have played a part in those events. Mind you, I can't say with any kind of certainty that numerology had any bearing on this disaster, I'm not an expert, nor do I claim to be one. I'm just a person who found numerology to be highly intriguing, and so I tend to pay much more attention to history, both past & present, and the numeric factors involved, than I did before both the earthquake & the serendipitous occurence of happening upon that book several days after, what became to me, a particularly life-changing event.

[@gloriawelch3603]

Omg. Not about you

[@korosuchimu1479]

The music is way too loud

[@tundrawomansays5067]

Turn on the Closed Captioning on your screen.

[@shellymurphyhoy7836]

There were so many mine accidents' back then. I had an ancestor in the Granite Mountain fire. He was an O Neil. My Great Grandmother lost 8 Brother's in one mine accident, The warehouses that blew up is another sad story in Butte. It definitely has a colorful history.

[@shellymurphyhoy7836]

Sorry, I didn't think of this being about the two warehouses.

[@RICDirector]

This just makes me ill....those poor people. And all in the name of money, when it came down to it. :(

[@grantjohnston5817]

The dirge on the pipes made me weep!

[@inkyguy]

In explosions of this size, usually the largest remaining piece of human remains is the upper, thickest thoracic section of the spine, i.e., the section located behind the chest.

[@shelliehuff7462]

Bless you

[@PoppaCold1]

It's a shame this has been overlooked by historians.

[@jenmb2679]

Wait.a fire was above ground, on top of a coal mine it would reach a vein underground and there would be an underground fire. It happened in Centralia, pennsylvania, India, and China, and are still burning today.

[@D80pfb]

Not coal, Copper.

[@rockin_john6282]

"Hard rock mining."

[@gomphrena-beautifulflower-8043]

I’m so sorry, this looked interesting but the audio overruns the narrator in most of it.

[@kirkmattoon2594]

Huh. Not on my PC. The audio was fine. But I see you're not alone in having complaints about the audio, so I guess it sounds better on some devices than others.

[@cruisepaige]

The sound of the narrators voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

[@ghjytffjkk]

i didnt find it a problem at all...

[@FRLN500]

Why not leave the music out altogether?

[@jamesfraser4173]

Very good video, but, it has a problem common to lots of documentaries, that being, the narration being drowned out by background music.

[@gabe-po9yi]

The money collected in Butte was $45,000, the equivalent of $1.4 million in 2021. Firefighters’ families received $3,000, the equivalent of $93,000.

[@squealoneill8645]

Hell yeah bro

[@dawnreneegmail]

Current Beirut comes to mind. Dishonest business practices, ‘not my department’ attitude and kaboom. People at the top generally know and could do something about these death traps but they shine them on. The little guy always suffers. The music didn’t cause me a problem as noted by a slew of comments but the sister’s song was a tad tangy.

[@raypitts4880]

the above at Beirut comes back to haunt humans because nobody is dedicated to police these rules as laid down by authorities history goes round watch again it WILL happen because new generation try to prove a point it happen to us

[@BigBear21740]

The dog never left his side? Amazing.

[@brandyjean7015]

How sad that 5 of those fallen firefighters didn't even receive grave markers until 2001.

[@ritamariekelley4077]

Our country has been plagued with capitalism run amok and corporate greed all along, since its beginnings with slavery and genocide. This was beautifully done and a real tribute to those whose lives were lost as well as their families. We never learn from history, it seems and today, the greed, corruption and de-regulation is worse than ever. It's on all of us, whether you vote red or blue. We are dying at the hands of capitalism and corporate greed.

[@mwhitelaw8569]

Whoever did the intro Sweet pickin' buddy

[@vincew.2824]

The song though.

[@JoeSmith-zg7in]

Saddest story.

[@archaeobard1]

This was a great docu. Only complaint, background music could have been lower or less piercing. Might be my ears, but I found it distracted from the narrative.

[@geraldpena5895]

Greed of money causes deaths of many but God will judge those that put money above human lives and their torment and hell will be Justice for those that died at their hands for their greed will be the end of them eternally

[@TPOTfan406]

21:51 then boom all firemen were killed and the warehouse was destroyed into pieces I live in butte which was the exact same place it happened it was the biggest explosion in Montana

[@barbara4390]

I love programmes like this what I don't like is the music I find it distracting

[@sarahivsutterb747]

Madre de Dios, this was horrible and it reminds me of the huge and devastating 9/11 tragedy and the huge explosion in the city of Beirut this year of 2020 and the other one in China a few years ago and many many other explosions like that one in the whole world! What a horrible and gruesome disaster in all of these incidents - may all of the deceased men, women and kids rest in peace and harmony in heaven! Amen 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 Lovely greetings from Sarah 🙋‍♀💖😍🤗🤔

[@raypitts4880]

same old problem nobody bothers to keep a check on the rules for each warehouse.

[@lathamarea1437]

Corporate greed once again takes innocent lives.

[@tata011670]

Exactly how is that?

[@allandavis8201]

A small but important point, the statement right at the start by a New York fire chief, stated that the firemen faced death and accepted it in the “line of work”, but in my humble opinion, it would be more accurate to say the “line of duty”. I know that the statement was made about a century ago, but even then it was a duty, a calling if you like, firemen then and now were there to help others in dire need and peril, that, to me, makes it nothing like a “job”. Thanks for sharing this excellent historical event, interesting and informative, very saddening as well, but nonetheless very well worth a watch. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The mighty dollar 💵 reigned supreme as usual, the fat cats got away with it once again. Even today there is no real penalty for the fat cats, a fine and maybe a short jail term, but in a minimum security “country club”, no brightly coloured jump suits, plenty of recreation time etc etc, not a real punishment, an inconvenience? maybe, but punishment, NO.

[@bullfroggaming1166]

We call that the big M

[@savethofel8952]

Is this David Ackroyd? He's a great narrator.

[@ivanthemisunderstood6940]

All of the lives lost, health destroyed, millions of man-hours worked to extract that ore...and now a miner can't afford to buy a house in Butte. What a waste of life and treasure.

[@davelowets]

I experience Great Butt Explosions after every Taco Bell expedition. I can greatly understand...

[@TempoDrift1480]

Can't hear it means I can't watch it. Crank the gain and redo it.

[@Skipbo000]

good doc, but you seem to suggest that it was water which ignited the fire but never explained why. I wasn't aware that water ignites fire. I thought water extinguished fire.

[@brettsharbono3022]

Turn down the music 20% please and did that professor guy seriously say volunteer firefighters had a bastion of "male privilege" job WTF?! I live in western Montana and never heard of this story...

[@heatherw6591]

Ya'll should watch Aerial America. Lot of unknown history there.

[@mrhead6856]

I just had a not so great butt explosion lol

[@josephastier7421]

I never knew that "powder" and "dynamite" are the same thing.

[@jordanhicks5131]

They arent. Powder refers to "giant powder" which is a type of blasting powder consisting of nitroglycerin, sodium nitrate, sulfur, rosin, and sometimes kieselguhr. Dynamite is nitroglycerin stabilized with diatomaceous earth or sawdust. Different products used for the same purpose, make things go bang

[@19Edurne]

Music too loud... again.

[@jenmb2679]

and they said volunteer firemen arent needed

[@raypitts4880]

to little to late

[@wvmontani]

I have a Great Butt Explosion every time I eat at Taco Bell.

[@diesellover2748]

I hope the sisters never wrote another song after this

[@wesleyhayley3657]

K.C. where are you??

[@JudeNance]

BUTTE HAS SUCH A FACINATING HISTORY. IT WAS HELD UNDER MARTIAL LAW 6 TIMES.

[@aoilpe]

They had a Tramway...?!

[@ricksadler797]

God bless

[@baardkopperud]

"Only allwoed to store a small amount of explosives in town? What a stupid rule! Why would anybody think up something like that?"

[@pikeman80]

That's a huge insult to firemen......comparing them to the military is a slap in the face. The fireman actually do something useful. Oh rich businessmen still break the rules and cut corners all the time

[@wt1370]

“ A bastion of male privilege “? Unbelievable

[@freedapeeple4049]

Why? You do understand that this is over 100 years ago, don't you? Do you expect people of 100 years ago to have the same attitudes and standards that we do today?

[@flyingmonkeystunts9730]

@@freedapeeple4049 I Believe it’s unbelievable bc it’s not pertinent or helpful to be included in a doc about men dying doing their jobs. Hardly a privilege and tragedy regardless.

[@brettsharbono3022]

It's a bastion of "male privilege" to bust your ass and die early in age apparently lol! I thought that was a B.S. statement myself.

[@mattwilliams3456]

Don’t forget the need to mention how ethnically diverse the city was.

[@donolbers9446]

I don't like to whine, because this is a great documentary, but it sure would be nice to turn the music down a tad.