NEWS AND NOTES 



On August 29th and 30th, following an almost unprecedented 

 spell of hot dry weather, a conflagration broke out in the Clay 

 Belt of Northern Ontario, covering probably several hundred thous- 

 and acres, destroying a number of towns and settlements and par- 

 tially destroying others, and causing the death of more than 400 

 people and the injury of many others. The greatest destruction 

 was in the vicinity of Matheson on the Temiskaming and Northern 

 Ontario Railway. Settlers' fires are reported as the agency re- 

 sponsible. 



This is the greatest catastrophe of the kind, from the point of 

 view of lives lost, that has ever taken place in Canada. It ranks 

 at least equal in loss of life with the Hinckley fire, Minnesota, of 

 1894, and has apparently covered a considerably larger area. 

 Apparently, the Clay Belt fire of 1916 is second, in its disastrous 

 consequences, to no forest fire which has occurred on the continent 

 save only the great Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin, in 1871, where 1500 

 persons lost their lives. It is, of course, a far greater disaster than 

 the Porcupine fire, of 1911, in the same region of the Clay Belt as 

 the 1916 fire, in which 164 lives were lost. The present fire is, to 

 some extent, a secondary one, burning over territory on which the 

 timber was killed in 19 1 1 . This illustrates the well-recognized fact 

 that the first fire does not consume the standing timber altogether 

 but generally only kills it, leaving the scene ready for a still worse 

 fire a few years later. 



A strong campaign is being waged by the Commission of Con- 

 servation and the Canadian Forestry Association in favor of the 

 enactment of a law in the Province of Ontario, providing for the 

 regulation of settlers' clearing fires, under the permit system, which 

 is already in effect in a number of the other provinces. A thorough 

 reorganization of the whole fire-ranging system of the Province is 

 also considered essential. 



Twenty-two of the leading Boards of Trade of Ontario have 

 made representations to the Ontario Government for a reorgani- 

 zation of its forest protection system. 



The Boards have specified two reforms: the reorganization of 

 the rangers so as to provide for supervision and inspection, both 

 in the head office and the field; secondly, that the Government 



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