RB216 Pendleton Valley Fire (pt.1)

   RANGER BILL for

Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025 is

RB216 (my episode #) Pendleton Valley Fire  

aka First Ranger Bill Show aka First Snow (part 1 of 3) 15 min. long

Fire has broken out in Pendleton Valley. Colonel Ander and his rangers rush to the valley to extinguish the fire, but dry weather is making their fire fight very, very tough. The Colonel is afraid they won't be able to control the blaze, so he sends Ranger Bill and his ward Henry into the mountains to Pine Ridge Dam. Bill is also taking along two horses and a box of high explosives.

Parts 2 and 3 of this very first RANGER BILL adventure are available only as PDFs or in print as scripts.

In parts 2 and 3, Bill and Henry first travel by truck and then by horseback to Pine Ridge Dam. The boys set up camp at the dam and begin 4-hour shifts through the night watching for a signal to blow up the dam and flood Pendleton Valley below to put out the fire. The two have devotions using John 1:12. 

Bill reminds Henry keep a good fire going all night to keep predators away, especially Uncle Joe, the biggest mountain  lion around. A rattler sneaks up onto Bill's leg, Bill escapes the rattler but badly sprains his ankle. Now Henry will have to crawl out on top of the dam to set the dynamite!

The signal comes in the wee hours of the morning to blow Pine Ridge. But rain has also come and made the dam extremely slippery to cross. Henry crawls across the wet stone dam and slips. Bill must gather his strength and will to crawl out to Henry with an injured leg! Can our two heroes save themselves while destroying Pine Ridge?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HUpe0t3qu0

RB216 Pendleton Valley Fire

  RANGER BILL for

Wednesday, March 19, 20225 is

RB216 (my episode #) Pendleton Valley Fire  

aka First Ranger Bill Show aka First Snow (part 1 of 3) 15 min. long

Fire has broken out in Pendleton Valley. Colonel Ander and his rangers rush to the valley to extinguish the fire, but dry weather is making their fire fight very, very tough. The Colonel is afraid they won't be able to control the blaze, so he sends Ranger Bill and his ward Henry into the mountains to Pine Ridge Dam. Bill is also taking along two horses and a box of high explosives.

Parts 2 and 3 of this very first RANGER BILL adventure are available only as PDFs or in print as scripts.

In parts 2 and 3, Bill and Henry first travel by truck and then by horseback to Pine Ridge Dam. The boys set up camp at the dam and begin 4-hour shifts through the night watching for a signal to blow up the dam and flood Pendleton Valley below to put out the fire. The two have devotions using John 1:12. 

Bill reminds Henry keep a good fire going all night to keep predators away, especially Uncle Joe, the biggest mountain  lion around. A rattler sneaks up onto Bill's leg, Bill escapes the rattler but badly sprains his ankle. Now Henry will have to crawl out on top of the dam to set the dynamite!

The signal comes in the wee hours of the morning to blow Pine Ridge. But rain has also come and made the dam extremely slippery to cross. Henry crawls across the wet stone dam and slips. Bill must gather his strength and will to crawl out to Henry with an injured leg! Can our two heroes save themselves while destroying Pine Ridge?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HUpe0t3qu0

RB216 Pendleton Valley Fire (pt. 1)

  RANGER BILL for

Saturday afternoon, Aug. 24, 2024 is

RB216 (my episode #) Pendleton Valley Fire'

aka First Ranger Bill Show aka First Snow (part 1 of 3) 15 min. long

Fire has broken out in Pendleton Valley. Colonel Ander and his rangers rush to the valley to extinguish the fire, but dry weather is making their fire fight very, very tough. The Colonel is afraid they won't be able to control the blaze, so he sends Ranger Bill and his ward Henry into the mountains to Pine Ridge Dam. Bill is also taking along two horses and a box of high explosives.

Parts 2 and 3 of this very first RANGER BILL adventure are available only as PDFs or in print as scripts.

In parts 2 and 3, Bill and Henry first travel by truck and then by horseback to Pine Ridge Dam. The boys set up camp at the dam and begin 4-hour shifts through the night watching for a signal to blow up the dam and flood Pendleton Valley below to put out the fire. The two have devotions using John 1:12. 

Bill reminds Henry keep a good fire going all night to keep predators away, especially Uncle Joe, the biggest mountain  lion around. A rattler sneaks up onto Bill's leg, Bill escapes the rattler but badly sprains his ankle. Now Henry will have to crawl out on top of the dam to set the dynamite!

The signal comes in the wee hours of the morning to blow Pineridge. But rain has also come and made the dam extremely slippery to cross. Henry crawls across the wet stone dam and slips. Bill must gather his strength and will to crawl out to Henry with an injured leg! Can our two heroes save themselves while destroying Pine Ridge?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HUpe0t3qu0

RB216 Pendleton Valley Fire

 RANGER BILL for

Saturday afternoon, May 22, 2021 is

RB216 (my episode #) Pendleton Valley Fire'

aka First Ranger Bill Show aka First Snow (part 1 of 3) 15 min. long

Fire has broken out in Pendleton Valley. Colonel Ander and his rangers rush to the valley to extinguish the fire, but dry weather is making their fire fight very, very tough. The Colonel is afraid they won't be able to control the blaze, so he sends Ranger Bill and his ward Henry into the mountains to Pine Ridge Dam. Bill is also taking along two horses and a box of high explosives.

Parts 2 and 3 of this very first RANGER BILL adventure are available only as PDFs or in print as scripts.

In parts 2 and 3, Bill and Henry first travel by truck and then by horseback to Pine Ridge Dam. The boys set up camp at the dam and begin 4-hour shifts through the night watching for a signal to blow up the dam and flood Pendleton Valley below to put out the fire. The two have devotions using John 1:12. 

Bill reminds Henry keep a good fire going all night to keep predators away, especially Uncle Joe, the biggest mountain  lion around. A rattler sneaks up onto Bill's leg, Bill escapes the rattler but badly sprains his ankle. Now Henry will have to crawl out on top of the dam to set the dynamite!

The signal comes in the wee hours of the morning to blow Pineridge. But rain has also come and made the dam extremely slippery to cross. Henry crawls across the wet stone dam and slips. Bill must gather his strength and will to crawl out to Henry with an injured leg! Can our two heroes save themselves while destroying Pine Ridge?

Chat about  the adventures of Bill, Stumpy, Henry and Gray Wolf on our Facebook page (click on the link in the right column). Email me if you are looking for CDs. or mp3 files.

Fire and Flood - Pendleton Valley Fire

I have mentioned the very first Ranger Bill story from 1950 before, The Pendleton Valley Fire. But I would like to mention it again, if you don't mind.
As you may know, the Pendleton Valley fire begins with Colonel Anders in charge, not Ranger Bill Jefferson. Anyway, the fire breaks out and the Colonel and his crew of men have a tough fight to control the valley fire. This is one big fire! The Colonel doesn't know if they get the fire under control or not. Then Colonel Anders sends a message to Bill to head into the hill country above the fire.
By the way, Bill gets the call at his outpost cabin in the forest, not at Ranger Headquarters in Knotty Pine. It isn't clear in that first episode if Colonel Anders has his headquarters in Knotty Pine or somewhere else. But Bill and Henry don't appear to be at Ranger HQ in Knotty Pine in that first show. But I digress. Back to the story.
The colonel sends Bill into the back country to Pine Ridge Dam. I'm not absolutely sure, but I believe that the dam is an earthen one. Bill and Henry ride Bess and Maude up to Pine Ridge. Bill sprains an ankle when he gets his foot caught under a tree root. Then an rattler almost bites him while he is sleeping. The boys eventually get orders in the middle of the night to dynamite the dam and flood the fire. With some difficulty, Henry places the dynamite. They blow the dam and the rush of water does put out the forest fire.
I loved the story but I doubted that the water flow from any mountain reservoir could be big enough to put out a forest fire. Then I found out that someone I know used to live in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, site of the 1889 Johnstown Flood, one of the worst natural disasters in US history. This person said that an earthen dam 14 miles upstream from Johnstown broke during a heavy rain, sending 20 million tons of water down the river valley. The wall of rushing water was thirty to fifty feet high when it struck Johnstown. Four towns were destroyed, including Johnstown, and 2209 lives were lost. If that can happen to Johnstown, then it's no stretch of the imagination to believe that Pine Ridge Dam could take care of the Pendleton Valley fire.

Do you remember...?

Do you or someone you know remember way back to the very early days of Ranger Bill? I mean the period from 1950 to the start of 1954 when Ranger Bill was a 15-minute show on Mondays at 4:45 in the afternoon.
I am wondering if any of you remember any of the stories from those first three plus years. I have mentioned the very first Ranger Bill story, the three-part "Pendleton Valley Fire" which began on October 2, 1950. The closing of part three mentions the next Ranger Bill story, "Disappearing Buffalo." I have a very old tape of RB179 "VIPs Visit Knotty Pine" that a friend sent me. Coincidentally, the title that this friend's mom put on the tape was "The Disappearing Buffalo Herd." Could it be that the 1950 story got recycled into "VIPs..." in 1954? If I remember correctly, Ed Ronne, Sr., joined Ranger Bill in 1954. Recycling "Disappearing Buffalo" in 1954 would give a probably busy writing staff a bit of a breather. New voices like Ed's could then be introduced in an old story.
If any of you or your parents remember a story or stories from those early days of Ranger Bill, please write and share your memories of those shows. There were probably more than 100 of the 15-minute shows. And there are probably at least 30 or 40 different stories in those shows.
Please take a few minutes to share with those of us who have never heard those early. Send your email to rangerbillclub@aol.com. I will post your notes right away.

Pendleton Valley Fire

We have an update on the first Ranger Bill story Pendleton Valley Fire. We originally reported that Pendleton Valley Fire was a two-part story. We have since read through the scripts we have (Ranger Bill scripts #1 and #2). This story doesn't end with show #2. It looks as if the story goes on for at least one or two more episodes.

We know that Colonel Anders and his men are fighting a tough fire in Pendleton Valley. The colonel sends Ranger Bill and Henry to Pineridge Dam to blow it up and flood the fire if Pendleton Valley gets out of control. We can tell you that Bill is attacked by a rattler and injured while he and Henry are on their way to the dam. Will they get there? Will they blow up the dam? How will they be able to destroy enough of the dam to flood a fire? That we don't don't know. We all will have to wait and see.

The Very First Ranger Bill Show!!!

"Pendleton Valley Fire" is the very first Ranger Bill program ever broadcast, first aired on October 2, 1950. This is a 2-part story aired in 15-minute segments.

In this show Colonel Anders is leading his rangers in fighting a huge fire in the Pendleton Valley. The fire is getting too big for the firefighters to control. So Colonel Anders sends Ranger Bill, Henry, and Stumpy high in the mountains above Pendleton Valley. Bill and the boys must reach an earthen dam to blow it up and save the firefighters and the valley from the massive fire.

Cleveland Moody radio station WCRF is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. So what does that have to do with Ranger Bill and the "Pendleton Valley Fire?" As part of their celebration, WCRF performed a humorous reenactment of "Pendleton Valley Fire." The WCRF crew mentioned that the original Ranger Bill cast and crew would often perform a Ranger Bill story at Chicago area churches. They also revealed that many of these early 15-minute episodes were cliff-hangers.

WCRF also has some Ranger Bill treats on their web site, an mp3 audio file from that first Ranger Bill episode and copies of episodes 1 and 2 so you can read the entire "Pendleton Valley Fire" story and find out what happens to Colonel Anders and his men and what Bill does to rescure them.

Visit the WCRF web site at http://www.wcrfradio.org/ and follow the links to their 50th anniversary to liten to and download the Pendleton Valley audio and scripts.

And don't forget our own Ranger Bill script, "The Fire Bug," the story of Randolph Thompson's coal-burning engines. Visit our files on Zoomshare at http://rangerbill.zoomshare.com/ and click on the "Fire Bug" link.