CANADA'S DEADLY FOREST FIRES 



521 



■ J',,^s7« 



11 



WHERE ONCE THE TOWN OF MATHESON STOOD 



This town was destroyed by wave after wave of flame, which swept across the almost flat country surrounding it, at a speed which caused total destruction of 

 property and cost many lives. The photograph, taken from the window of a relief train, gives only a general impression of the havoc wrought by the fire. The 

 air was thick with smoke and the fire still burned fiercely in piles of fallen trees when the photograph was taken. 



Canada's Deadly Forest Fires 



By Robson Black 

 Secretary, The Canadian Forestry Association, Ottazva 



THE most disastrous forest fire in the history of 

 Canada broke across the " Clay Belt " region of 

 Northern Ontario on the afternoon of Saturday, 

 July 29th. Within eighteen hours, more than 200 lives 

 were forfeited, 1200 square miles of bush and clearing 

 devastated, and the thriving towns of Cochrane, Porquis 

 Junction, Iroquois Falls, Nushka, Kelso, Alatheson and 

 Ramore badly damaged or swept wholly from sight. 

 What the loss means in terms of dollars is vaguely stated 

 as between three and six millions, exclusive of forest 

 damage. Hundreds of settlers' homes, their standing 

 and harvested crops of hay, barley, oats, wheat, and 

 potatoes, with much live stock, farm implements and 

 the hard-won accumulation of years, were turned to 

 drifting ashes and chunks of charcoal. The Temiskam- 

 ing and Northern Ontario Railway lost one hundred 

 freight cars, on some of which the steel wheels were 

 melted by the sulphur cargo to shapeless pools. Railway 

 stations in the heart of the fire were reduced to twisted 

 skeletons, and mining companies lost every structure 

 above the earth's level. 



Had a hail of high explosi\-e been let loose upon the 



bush lands from Matheson to Cochrane, the suddenness 

 and violence of the catastrophe could not have been more 

 terrifying. Drifting smoke of Thursday and Friday, 

 rousing few apprehensions in a country accustomed to 

 clearing fires, became by Saturday afternoon a smother- 

 ing blanket of flame and gas and flying debris. Fierce 

 winds drove the fire and smoke with such speed that 

 only a broad river or lake, or an uncommonly wide clear- 

 ing, was of much avail. Blazing pine tops hurled through 

 the air, and where a home well separated from the bush 

 seemed one moment in perfect safety, in the next it 

 crackled with flames. Settlers and prospectors hastened 

 toward the villages. Some reached their goal. Scores 

 of others were smothered as they ran. Bodies were 

 found lying across tree stumps : some held emptv pails, 

 some grovelled into the earth. One man took to a swamp 

 before an advancing cloud of fire, while his comrade re- 

 mained on a cliff. The cloud dipped into the swamp, 

 consuming the body of the first fugitive, and swept over 

 the head of the man on the clifT, leaving him quite un- 

 harmed. \'eering winds accounted for surprising in- 

 cidents, as when a house and its htmian contents would 



