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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



be destroyed, while a hay rick a hundred yards distant 

 would be spared. Settlers and their families, with homes 

 bordering the rivers, took to canoes, upset them, and by 



to the speed of the fire in this manner: "I had been 

 fighting bush fires all day and returned for supper. At 

 that time the smoke was curling about the far buildings, 



THE RUINS OF FIRE-SWEPT MATHESON 



Another view of the fire-wept area at the unfortunate town. All around this town the fire has destroyed the timber to such an extent that there is none left 



for fuel, and this must now be transported for many miles. 



piling wet blankets atop existed in such precarious shelter 

 for hours. Two families, numbering fourteen persons, 

 clambered into a well. The adults tore their clothes to 

 strips and by stuffing the children's mouths with moist- 

 ened pieces and covering their heads in a similar manner 

 came through the night of Saturday free from injury. 

 Fifty-four men, women and children, mostly French- 

 Canadians, at Nushka, where the worst fire seems to 

 have originated, raced frantically for a shallow cut in 

 the railway ; every one was smothered by heat and gases. 

 Under culverts and in wells and mine shafts families 

 were found burned to death ; a tragic nUmber of babies 

 appears in the list of victims, and a further pitiful legacy- 

 is the large group of wounded now recuperating in 

 hospitals and homes. 



Evidence of the cause of the fire points directly to 

 settlers' -lash burnings which, week after week, were 

 allowed to work their way into nearby bush, encouraged 

 by the peculiar peaty character of "(lay Belt" soil. Lack- 

 ing the supervision or control of fire rangers, for Ontario 

 has no law restricting the settler, the intensely hot period 

 of July brought along the logical penalty. Numbers of 

 small tire- joined forces and, whisked into action by the 

 Saturday hurricane, turned township after township 

 into a fury. Said one survivor: " The roar of the thing 

 was awful. You could hear no person speak for the 

 noise. Flames climbed up at times two hundred feet 

 above the bush. I noticed little excitement, and most 

 people appeared to be waiting unafraid. All the while 

 the gale was increasing." Another settler gave emphasis 



but the actual conflagration was a mile away. My wife 

 prepared the meal, a matter of a few minutes. Then she 

 went to the front door and looked out. At once she 

 returned, shouting that the fire was upon us. We had 

 time just to reach the potato patch where we flung our- 

 selves down and managed to find a thin layer of air close 

 to the earth. The green vegetation seemed to hold up 

 the smoke clouds, and after hours of terrified waiting 

 we came through the ordeal without serious hurt. Every 

 vestige of our home and stables was changed to charcoal." 

 It is noteworthy that clearings of a quarter-mile about 

 some of the towns were crossed by the fire, not alone by 

 flying sparks, but by the blazing grass and stubble. 



From the first violent action of the flames at Nushka 

 on Saturday afternoon and evening, the swath of destruc- 

 tion took fresh bearings north and south. Cochrane, which 

 stands at the junction of the National Transcontinental 

 and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railways, 

 with a population of 2500, was enveloped by fires originat- 

 ing in its immediate district, the business section being 

 destroyed, with an estimated loss of $1,000,000. Mathe- 

 son, the axis of a more southerly fire, was clean-swept, 

 with the exception of three small houses on a hillock. To 

 its grave-yard were brought the bodies of 135 persons 

 from Nushka and the neighboring farming districts. The 

 population of the town proper took to the clearings and 

 came through safely with the aid of a freight train which, 

 by good luck, had been stalled on its southerly trip by 

 a burned bridge. 



Beyond the limits of towns and villages, the picture 



