From
Rocky Mountain Region Bulletin
Volume 20 – Number 10 / October 1937

Paul E. Tyrrell was born August 11, 1913, the son of Mr. and Mrs. George E. Tyrrell, of 2057 – Harrington Avenue, Oakland, California.  He graduated from Roosevelt High School, Oakland and thereupon entered the University of California majoring in forestry.  He graduated in 1936 with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Forestry.  Tyrrell was engaged in experimental work in the University of California forest during the summer of 1935.  From June 1 to October 15, 1936 he was employed by the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine on blister rust control.

He was appointed Junior Forester, effective February 25, 1937, and was assigned to the Harney National Forest as Technical Foreman at Custer Camp F-12.  On March 15 he was transferred to the Bighorn Forest as foreman at Camp F-34.  On May 16, Tyrrell brought a detachment of enrollees to Tensleep to prepare the camp for occupancy.  Company 1811 moved in from Bastrop, Texas on May 25th and Tyrrell was assigned to this camp (F-35).

He came with enrollees of Company 1811 to fight the Blackwater fire and the happenings of that fateful day of August 21, 1937 are given in detail elsewhere in this Bulletin.

Tyrrell was severely burned with other members of his crew marooned on a rocky point.  The long trip to the first aid station, thence down the trail to the road where an ambulance awaited for another trip of thirty miles to Cody resulted in so much exposure that double pneumonia set in.  Paul was unable to rally from this and passed on at 1:00 p.m. August 26.  His father and fiancé were at his bedside at his death.

Tyrrell’s sense of responsibility for the men in his charge is shown in the signed statement of enrollee Alcario Serros as follows:

“Then we saw that we didn’t have no chance to go back, so Ranger Post told Mr. Tyrrell to take care of us and he took us up to the rim rock.  The fire started from the east and then south and then the west.  It was the west fire that burned us.  As the fire came closer to us we laid down on the rock ridge.  Mr. Tyrrell laid on top of me.  When the fire burned Mr. Tyrrell he ran and I ran too, about 10 feet.”

As he was the same age as many of the enrollees in his care, it was necessary for him to have definite leadership qualities and this was very evident in the fine spirit between Paul and his crew.  He has a pleasing personality and took a keen interest in the sports in the camp and camp life as a whole.

In a letter to Paul’s father, Regional Forester Allen S. Peck said:

We Forest Service men of the Rocky Mountain Region feel a very special sense of loss in the case of your son, because we felt confident that he faced a very promising future in the Forest Service.  I personally had the pleasure of making his acquaintance rather intimately just a few weeks before his death and had looked forward to having him with us as a member of our permanent force.  He impressed me as being an unusually well educated and able young forester.

Note: The Tyrrell Ranger Station on the Bighorn National Forest is named after Paul.