EXHAUSTION OF THE FOREST. 255 



Of such calamities, one of the worst that is on record is that known as 

 the Peshtigo fire, which, in 1871, during the same month, October, when Chi- 

 cago was laid in ashes, devastated the country about the shores of Green 

 Bay in Wisconsin. More than $3,000,000 worth of property was burnt, at 

 least two thousand families of settlers were made homeless, villages were 

 destroyed and over a thousand lives lost. (Bruncken, p. 110.) 



The most destructive fire of more recent years was that which started 

 near Hinckley, Minn., September 1, 1894. While the area burned over was 

 less than in some other great fires, the loss of life and property was very 

 heavy. Hinckley and six other towns were destroyed, about 500 lives were 

 lost, more than 2,000 persons were left destitute, and the estimated loss in 

 property of various kinds was $25,000,000. Except for the heroic conduct 

 of locomotive engineers and other railroad men, the loss of life would have 

 been far greater. 



This fire was all the more deplorable, because it was wholly unnecessary. 

 For many days before the high wind came and drove it into uncontrollable 

 fury, it was burning slowly close to the town of Hinckley and could have 

 been put out. (Pinchot, Part I, 82-83.) 



One of the most remarkable features of these "crown fires," is the 

 rapidity with which they travel. The Miramichi fire traveled nine 

 miles an hour. 



To get an idea of the fury of a forest fire, read this description 

 from Bruncken. After describing the steady, slow progress of a duff 

 fire, he proceeds : 



But there comes an evening when nobody thinks of going to bed. All 

 day the smoke has become denser and denser, until it is no longer a haze, but 

 a thick yellowish mass of vapor, carrying large particles of sooty cinders, 

 filling one's eyes and nostrils with biting dust, making breathing oppressive. 

 There is no escape from it. Closing windows and doors does not bar it out 

 of the houses; it seems as if it could penetrate solid walls. Everything it 

 touches feels rough, as if covered with fine ashes. The heat is horrible altho 

 no ray of sunshine penetrates the heavy pall of smoke. 



In the distance a rumbling, rushing sound is heard. It is the fire 

 roaring in the tree tops on the hill sides, several miles from town. This is 

 no longer a number of small fires, slowly smouldering away to eat up a 

 fallen log; nor little dancing flames running along the dry litter on the 

 ground, trying to creep up the bark of a tree, where the lichens are thick 

 and dry, but presently falling back exhausted. The wind has risen, fanning 

 the flames on all sides, till they leap higher and higher, reaching the lower 

 branches of the standing timber, enveloping the mighty boles of cork pine 

 in a sheet of flame, seizing the tall poles of young trees and converting 

 them into blazing beacons that herald the approach of destruction. Fiercer 

 and fiercer blows the wind, generated by the fire itself as it sends currents 

 of heated air rushing upward into infinity. Louder and louder the cracking 



