HISTORIC FOREST FIRES. 81 



part of the damage to the neighborhood. The wages 

 that would have been earned in lumbering, added to 

 the value of the produce that would have been pur- 

 chased to supply the lumber camps, and the taxes that 

 would have been devoted to roads and other public 

 improvements, furnish a much truer measure of how 



FIG. 76. A Ilocky Mountain coniferous forest killed by tire. Valley of the 

 North Fork of Sun River, Montana. 



much, sooner or later, it costs a region when its forests 

 are destroyed by fire. (See figs. 76-81, and Pis. XLI, 

 XLVI, XL VII.) 



The Peshtigo fire of October, 1871, was still more 

 severe than the Miramichi. It covered an area of over 

 2,000 square miles in Wisconsin, and involved a loss, 

 in timber and other property, of many millions of dol- 

 lars. Between 1,200 and 1,500 persons perished, includ- 

 ing nearly half the population of Peshtigo, at that time 



