PREVENTION OF FOREST FIRES IN MINNESOTA 



By Gen. C. C. ANDREWS, 



POBESTBT COMMISSIONEE OF MINNESOTA. 



(An address delivered at the Lake States Conference, December 6.) 



XN THE past forty years deplorable calamities have occurred in the Lake 

 States from forest fires. The proclamation of Gov. Fairchild stated 

 that the loss of life in the forest fire of October, 1871, in Wisconsin was 

 at least 1,000 and that 3,000 persons were left homeless. Private contributions 

 for relief which had been received at the executive office alone up to the end 

 of 1871 exceeded $166,000, and the loss of property by the fire was estimated 

 at $3,000,000. Ten years later the fire in southeastern Michigan, September, 

 1881, caused by settlers burning brush, ran over 48 townships, burned to 

 death 138 people, rendered hundreds of families homeless and destroyed over 

 12,000,000 of property. The money and supplies contributed for relief ex- 

 ceeded a million dollars. By the forest fire near Phillips, Wisconsin, July, 

 1894, thirteen people perished. In the Hinckley, Minnesota, forest fire, Sep- 

 tember 1, 1894, 418 people perished and the relief furnished to 2,045 sufferers 

 amounted to |184,744. 



At the time of the Hinckley fire Minnesota had a law making it a mis- 

 demeanor to set on forest or prairie land fire that endangered the property 

 of another, but there was no particular system for its enforcement. The 

 Hinckley disaster led to making town supervisors fire wardens with a central 

 directing officer called chief fire warden, but since 1905, forestry commis- 

 sioner, with the trivial expenditure by the state of only $11,000 a year. Under 

 this system and with an area of 18,000,000 acres where the pine had its home, 

 with increasing risks from the activities of new settlements, logging acd 

 mineral industries, campers, tourists and hunters, and notwithstanding many 

 dry seasons, the average annual loss by forest fires, according to fire wardens' 

 reports during the thirteen years from and including 1895 to 1908, when the 

 Chisholm fire occurred, was only $30,000. During that period not only much 

 property but several villages, schools, and many lives were saved by the efforts 

 of fire wardens. 



In the Chisholm fire no lives were lost. That fire was started by careless 

 fishermen, ten miles away from Chisholm, in an unorganized township, and it 

 is my firm opinion that the village of Chisholm would not have been destroyed 

 but for the presence of abundant sla.shings in the path of the fire. Liberal 

 contributions were made by private citizens for the sufferers in the Chisholm 

 fire, as was recently done for the sufferers by the Baudette fire of this year. 

 I hoped the Chisholm experience wotild have induced our legislature to be 

 much more liberal than it had been with money for the prevention and sup- 

 pression of such fires, but the only increase it made was $9,000 a year, making 

 $21,000 annually for all purposes for the forestry commissioner's department. 

 The weather the present year from April to November, proved exceptionally 

 dry and dangerous. Twenty-six rangers were put on duty in June, but their 

 service had to be dispensed with September 1st for lack of money. The 

 Baudette fire in which 29 people perished and perhaps $1,000,000 or more 

 of property was destroyed, occurred October 7th. It was a tornado that made 

 the fire so fatal. Mr. George Chapin, who had served two seasons as ranger in 

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