CANADA'S DEADLY FOREST FIRES 



523 



AFTER THE FIRE AT COCHRANE 



Chief J. A. Crawford, of Cochrane police, and a couple of business men talking over the reconstruction of the town. Water-tank and the first new buildings 

 appear in this photograph, for with typical enterprise the survivors began to rebuild long before the ashes of the fire cooled and just as soon as building materials 

 could be rushed to the place. 



before the writer's eyes was of a charred and lifeless 

 expanse, the smoking ruins of homes, the stripped tree 

 trunks, isolated heaps of pulpwood, and endless miles of 

 forest debris. For great distances about Matheson, the 

 land looks as flat as a prairie, and the process of slash 

 clearing has undoubtedly been facilitated. Indeed, the 

 clearing has been so thorough that one wonders where 

 fuel wood and fence posts and small lumber will be 

 secured in future, and what prices will be paid. In other 

 districts, the fire's effect has been to reduce the slashings 

 and loosen the roots, while merely killing the green bush 



and exposing the district to a vastly greater disaster in 

 future years of drought. 



The refugees looked upon such scenes and such pros- 

 pects with remarkable stoicism. Men and women and 

 frightened groups of children gathered about the station 

 platforms, wearing garments from the Government relief 

 train and munching from boxes of emergency food, wait- 

 ing solemnly for the next turn in the terrible drive of 

 events. Sometimes whole families found themselves 

 united, but the rule of the day was of broken households. 



While the fires swept through every ounce of kindling 



Photograph by British and Colonial Press, Toronto. 



ARRIVAL OF THE RELIEF TRAIN AT MATHESON 



Only the stone walls of the station remain standing. Fortunately the railroad was not destroyed and it was possible for relief trains to take supplies to the 



destitute, and physicians and nurses for the injured survivors. 



