Report of the Forest Commission. 71 



The horrors of foiest fires aside, no phenomena of nature, unless it be vol- 

 canic eruptions, produce spectacles half so grand. "Hie sky is filled with dense 

 black smoke, which hangs over the doomed territory like a huge murky 

 canopy, and through which the rays of the sun struggle red and faint. Below, 

 the flames, crimson, pale yellow, and sometimes so intense as to be almost 

 white, blaze and roar in fiery billows. At night their glare is reflected upon 

 the inky mass above, and they cast long, weird shadows, sometimes miles 

 away . There are times when so great is the amount of air consumed by the 

 blazing forests that the rushing current of supply comes to be like a rushing, 

 mighty wind. So strong have these air streams been in cases as to lift people 

 from their feet and blow down light buildings. So fierce a fire as this pro- 

 gresses with amazing rapidity, and the hapless wretch who is overtaken in the 

 recesses of the woods by such a fire is hopelessly lost. 



There were many such instances during the great fires that swept parts of 

 Michigan in 1881. For a fortnight previous to the outbreak of flame and 

 smoke, the stagnant air had been murky with the smoke of bush fires. It was 

 so thick as to turn day almost into night. Objects could not be seen a dozen 

 feet away . Whence come the smoke no one knew, but all were apprehensive 

 of impending horror. The heat was overpowering. The thermometer reg- 

 istered for days above the hundred mark. On the morning of September 7 

 the deadly calm was broken by a slight breeze, which increased momentarily, 

 an 1 beforn noon was blowing a gale. With it came the flames, red, remorse- 

 less and swift . The settlers had no time for flight or fight. 



What was to be done must be done without delay. Men who were in the 

 fields and in the woods had scarcely time to reach their homes. Some of 

 them, indeed, never did, but fell, overpowered, to be first smothered and then 

 slowly roasted to death. Women gathered their children in their arms and 

 started for the nearest water. Some of these, too, were overtaken and per- 

 ished miserably . Others found their way to streams and lay down in the 

 water, while the roaring flames passed over them. Some who took refuge in 

 shallow water perished after all, the fire first licked up the water and then 

 roasted its victims. Many who were saved had to completely submerge them- 

 selves, and only lift their heads, when at the point of asphyxiation, for air. 

 Some descended into wells for safety, but most of these died, for the all-de- 

 vouring flames above sucked up the fresh air, and in its place deadly, suffo- 

 cating vapors filled the holes of refuge. It is estimated that fully 1,000 lives 

 were destroyed by the fires of 18S1. After the blessed rain came and extin- 

 guished the blaze and cooled the glowing beds of embers so that relief parties 

 were able to traverse the devastated districts, bjdies were found in all sorts of 

 places and lying in all sorts of distorted attitudes, showing how horrible had 

 been their death. Sometimes the clothes were not more than half consumed. 

 Hundreds who escaped death were lastingly and horribly disfigured. Hands 

 and feet were missing or drawn out of shape by reason of burned tendons. 

 One man's face was literally baked, so that most of the flesh fell from the 

 bones, and yet he lived, a ghastly, grinning spectacle. 



The fire played many curious pranks. In one case every building in the 

 village save the church and ginmill was destroyed. The parsonage, whose 

 walls were not more than 30 feet from the church, was totally consumed. 



