About Me
Bill Matthias was superintendent of
Northwood
School District in northwest Wisconsin at the time of
the Five Mile Tower Fire in 1977, with schools in Minong and Gordon.
There he launched teenage firefighting crews at Northwood High School
and battled the Five Mile Tower Fire for fifty hours.
Bill
has been a school administrator for thirty years in Wisconsin and at the 30th
anniversary of the Five Mile Tower Fire decided to start research,
interviewed over 135 people, and began writing this book. Now 33
years has elapsed since this famous fire and it is still the largest single forest fire in fifty years of Wisconsin
history.
Bill
has come to love the northwest
Wisconsin pine, scrub oak and lake region ever since his
parents, Matt and Gladys Matthias purchased a tract of forest
acreage and lake shore in the mid 1950’s. Now Bill and his wife
Karen split their time between Bond
Lake in the
township
of Wascott, near Minong,
and a home on the salt water in
Englewood,
Florida. Bill and Karen have four
children; Mark, Greg, Kristin and Jeff.
Bill
was a charter member of the Wascott Volunteer Fire Department formed just a few years after the
Five Mile Tower Fire. He is still a fire fighter in Wascott.
Bill’s
hobbies are hunting, fishing, playing the trombone, biking and
hiking.
To Learn More about the Wascott Fire Department,
Click on any of my pictures!