3io 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



time of going to press the most serious 

 fires in New York and Pennsylvania 

 were still burning. 



Maine. May 5 a forest fire endan- 

 gered the town of Kennebunk, but was 

 fought off successfully by a force of rail- 

 road men and citizens. It burned over 

 an area of 1,000 acres and destroyed 

 property valued at $13,000. The flames 

 started from sparks from a locomotive 

 on the Boston and Maine Railroad. On 

 the same date large tracts in the neigh- 

 borhood of Bemis and Houghton were 

 burned over and the Brimstone camps 

 of the Berlin Lumber Company were 

 destroyed. The mill of the Interna- 

 tional Lumber Company at Bemis was 

 threatened, but a large force of men, 

 gathered from nearby camps, got the 

 fire under control. The loss here was 

 mainly in the standing timber, and was 

 started from brush fires. A fire at the 

 same time in the neighborhood of Ells- 

 worth and Lamoine threatened the latter 

 town, which was saved only by hard 

 work after several houses and barns on 

 the outskirts had been consumed. Lum- 

 ber camps were destroyed. This fire 

 again broke out with increased vigor a 

 week later, after it had been supposedly 

 checked. On May 12 severe fires were 

 raging in Washington, Hancock, and 

 Penobscot counties, burning over vast 

 areas and threatening the mills of the 

 Great Northern Paper Company at Mil- 

 linocket. The fire was successfully 

 fought at this point by a force of 300 

 men. Greenville, just south of Moose- 

 head Lake, was threatened by a fire 

 started from burning brush. These 

 Maine fires were in no sense different 

 parts of the same burned area, but were 

 distributed through four widely sepa- 

 rated parts of the state. 



New Hampshire. A fire which might 

 have had some relation to that which 

 threatened Bemis, Me., near the Range- 

 ley Lakes, was reported as burning in 

 New Hampshire on May 2, denuding the 

 mountains and sweeping thousands of 

 acres near the northern border of the 

 state. May 15 rain checked forest fires 

 along the Connecticut River between 

 Stratford and Lancaster. The northern 

 parts of Vermont and New Hampshire 

 have not been so thoroughly fire-swept 



in years, the loss aggregating at least 

 $700,000. 



Massachusetts. Hundreds of acres in 

 Worcester county were swept by forest 

 fires about May i. The owners of 

 woodlots have been the principal suf- 

 ferers, and the fires are supposed to have 

 originated in the careless burning of 

 brush. On May 14 serious fires were 

 reported from the western portion of 

 the Cape Cod peninsula in the neighbor- 

 hood of Sandwich, and threatening that 

 village. A strong southerly wind car- 

 ried the flames from a portion of the 

 woods which were burned over a few 

 years ago to the more thickly grown 

 tracts, and spread so rapidly that the 

 fire wardens were unable to cope with 

 it. A magnificent summer home on the 

 shore of Spectacle Lake was burned, 

 and deer, fleeing before the flames, 

 sought refuge in the lake. 



Rhode Island. Heavy losses have 

 been reported from this state and from 

 Connecticut, the light rainfall during 

 April making the ground and under- 

 brush very dry. No details are obtain- 

 able, but the principal losers are owners 

 of woodlands. 



New York. The most destructive 

 fire which has visited the Adirondack 

 region in years burned from April 30 to 

 the middle of May, and did great dam- 

 age to standing timber and to buildings. 

 Driven by a high wind, the forests were 

 devastated in the neighborhood of Lake 

 Placid and Loon Lake, and for more 

 than i oo miles along the lines of the Dela- 

 ware and Hudson and New York Cen- 

 tral railways. The woods were dry as 

 tinder, and it is supposed that the flames 

 started from the sparks from a locomo- 

 tive. Thousands of cords of pulp wood 

 and hundreds of cords of charcoal were 

 destroyed when the fire first started. 

 Dwellings were burned at Plumadore, 

 a summer cottage was destroyed at 

 Lake Placid, and the big hotels there 

 seriously threatened. On May 5, after 

 a slight check, there was a fresh out- 

 break on the northern slopes of the 

 Adirondacks, and near Everton a boy 

 was burned to death. The paper-making 

 village of Newton Falls was saved by 

 fierce, persistent fighting, in which the 

 fire companies of nearby villages lent 



