well, for nothing could have lived in that pathway of flames. 

 Here and there a belated settler dashes out of the smoke and 

 the blaze into the road and joins in the flight toward safety, 

 but as a rule everyone has gone long before. Everything has 

 been turned over to the flames to do with as they please. 



On, on the fire fiend rushes at a speed of ten miles an hour, 

 maintained and unabated for days at a time. And then as 

 far as the eye can see everything is burned. Not a scrap of 

 green is left in the waste. The ground is covered with ashes, 

 in places six inches deep. A lumber camp is located by a 

 sidetrack and the trucks of a train that was burned. Not 

 even the ashes of the lumber piles remain the wind was so 

 strong that they were blown away. 



Wreaked Havoc Over Miles. 



Those acquainted with the history of the great woods are 

 familiar with the tragedies caused by the fire monster in the 

 period before the fire fighting brigades maintained by the 

 government became what they are today. 



One of the earliest forest fires was the great Miramichi 

 fire of 1825. It began its great destruction about 1 o'clock 

 in the afternoon of an October day at a place about sixty 

 miles above the town of Newcastle on the Miramichi river 

 in New Brunswick. Before 10 o'clock at night it was twenty 

 miles below Newcastle. In nine hours it had destroyed a 

 belt of forest eight miles long and twenty-five miles wide. 

 Over more than 2,500,000 acres every living thing was killed. 

 Even the fish were afterwards found dead in heaps on the 

 river banks. One hundred and sixty persons perished and 

 nearly 1,000 head of stock. The loss was estimated at $300,- 

 000, not including the value of the timber. 



The Peshtigo fire of October, 1871, was still more severe 

 than the Miramichi. It covered an area of more than 2,000 

 square miles in Wisconsin and involved a loss in timber and 

 other property of many millions of dollars. Between 1,200 

 and 1,500 ipersons perished, including half of the population 

 of Peshtigo, at that time a town of 2,000 inhabitants. 



Another most destructive fire started near Hinckley, Minn., 



26 



