EIGHTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 2 I 



their order as follows: The carelessness of farmers in burning brush for agricultural 

 purposes; sparks from railroad locomotives, and the camp (or coffee) fires left by 

 fishermen and hunters. Berry-pickers, tramps, picnic parties, summer boarders 

 and boys at play were each responsible for one or two cases. One fire was started by 

 an insane man, and one caught from a charcoal-burner's pit. The returns include 

 also, as in previous years, a large number of reports with the statement, "Cause 

 unknown. ' 



The figures for the forest area burned (4,345 acres) and the total damage 

 (89,150) show a gratifying decrease when compared with the great losses from 

 this source which occurred almost annually in New York before the establishment 

 of its Forestry Department. Perhaps their significance will be better understood if 

 considered in connection with the statistics showing the total burned area and loss 

 from forest fires throughout the United States, in which, according to the estimates 

 of the United States Bureau of Forestry, there occur annually forest fires that 

 on an average burn over an area of 10,274,089 acres, destroying at least $25,000,000 

 worth of real property and in which on an average, sixty human lives are lost 

 yearly. A special agent of the Government Bureau, after a careful examination 

 of the territory, reports that the forest fires this last fall in the States of Oregon 

 and Washington destroyed standing timber and other property to the value of 

 $12,767,100. He might have added that these fires were accompanied by the 

 usual loss of life. Thirty-eight dead bodies were found in one place- — in the 

 Lewis River Valley, Washington. In our neighboring State of New Jersey forest 

 fires last year covered 98,850 acres, and inflicted damages to the amount of S168 333 

 as officially reported. 



These statistics need not excite surprise if one recalls the terrible loss of life and 

 widespread destruction of timber from forest fires that have occurred repeatedly 

 in the Northwestern States. In the great fires that swept over parts of Northern 

 Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota in October, 187 1, over 1,000 persons lost their 

 lives and 15,000 were made homeless. The value of the standing timber destroyed 

 was never estimated closely, but it amounted to several million dollars. In the 

 fires of 1881, 1894 and 1896 hundreds of people were burned to death and wide 

 areas of valuable timber destroyed in that same region. 



And yet these fires started from some little blaze that, as was the case with 

 the Hinckley disaster in 1894, had smoldered for days before it attained head- 

 way,* and which could have been prevented had there been an efficient organiza- 

 tion for extinguishing them while in an incipient stage. 



* A detailed and interesting account of the great fires of 1894 may be found in the Annual Report 

 of the New York State Forest Commission for that year. 



