Report of the Forest Commission. 



105 



week been reading, that for comparison they are placed in parallel columns 

 with the reports in The Herald on last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. 



The Fire op 1871. 

 At sundown there was a lull in the wind and 

 comparative stillness. For two hours there 

 were do signs of danger, but in a few minutes 

 after 9 o'clock, and by singular coincidence, 

 precisely the time at which the Chicago fire 

 commenced, the people of the village heard a 

 terrible roar. It was that of a tornado crush- 

 ing through the frost. Instantly the heavens 

 were illuminated with a terrible glare. The 

 skj, which had been so dark a moment before, 

 burst into clouds of flame. A spectator of the 

 terrible scene says the fire oid not come upon 

 them gradually from burning trees and other 

 objects to the windward, but the first notice 

 they had of it was a whirlwind of flame, in great 

 clouds from above the tops of the trees, which 

 fell upon and entirely enveloped everything. 

 The poor people inhaled it, or the intensely hot 

 air, and fell down dead. This is verified by the 

 appearance o/ many of the corpses They were 

 found dead in roads and open spaces, where 

 there were no visible marks of fire near by, 

 with not a trace of burning upon their bodies 

 or clothing. At the Sugar Bush, which is an ex- 

 tended clearing, in some places four miles in 

 width, corpses were found in the open road, 

 between fences, only slightly burned. No 

 mark of fire was upon them; they lay there as 

 if asleep. This phenomenon seems to explain 

 the fact tbat so many were killed in compact 

 masses. They seem to have huddled together 

 in what were evidently regarded at the mo- 

 ment as the safest places, far away from 

 buildings, trees or other inflammab'e material, 

 and there to have died together. 



The heat has been compared to that engen- 

 dered by a flame concentrated on an object by 

 a blowpipe, but even that would not account 

 for some of the phenomena. For instance, 

 we have in our possession a copper cent taken 

 from the pocket of a dead man in the Pesh- 

 tigo, Sugar Bush, which will illustrate our 

 point. This cent has been partially fused, but 

 still retains its round form, and the inscription 

 upon it is legible. Others in the same p- cket 

 were partially melted, yet the clothing and the 

 body of the man were not even singed. We 

 do not know in what way to account for this, 

 unless, as is asserted by some, the tornado and 

 fire were accompanied by electrical phe- 

 nomena. 



It is the universal testimony that the pre- 

 vailing idea among the people was that the 

 last day had come. Accustomed as they were 



14 



The Fire of 1894. 

 The coming of the flames sounded like 

 thunder, and with such rapidity did they move 

 that persons who lingered to save property or 

 neglected to seek safety in the river perished. 

 Survivors say there was a cyclone of flame. 

 It could be likened only to the rollirjg up of a 

 hurricane or the bursting of a tornado, the 

 wind being fire, and the smoke death. Before 

 the fire struck the devoted settlements there 

 was a mighty wind, chimneys being blown 

 down, barns toppled over and haystacks lev- 

 eled. It blew at the rate of 60 miles an hour. 



The fire, pushed by the terrible gale, went 

 onward with the leaps of a demon. Stumps, 

 logs and buildings, thousands of feet from the 

 nearest flames, burst in! o fire, as if the air was 

 powder, and were consumed in an instant. In 

 a farming section, fully SO miles long, the fire 

 licked up all the vegetable matter in the soil 

 itself, and there is nothing now left of prosper- 

 ous farms but burned and broken rock, covered 

 by a few inches of ashes. 



The woods on either side were lashed by a 

 fierce wind, blowing at the rate of 80 miles an 

 hi,ur. On through this weird scene the limited 

 sped, the situation growing more alarming at 

 every mile. As the train neared Hinckley it 

 was discovered that the fire had reached the 

 railroad, but on it sped, the engineer hoping 

 to pass Hinckley in time to escape the danger. 

 It was not until the train had come within a 

 mile of Hinckley that the engineer discovered 

 his train was burning, and that it would be im- 

 possible to pass. 



On either side of the engine there was a 

 stream of fl ime, but never for an instant did 

 Engineer Root flinch. To remain was appa- 

 rently certain death to him, but could he hold 

 out for four miles the passengers might possi- 

 bly escape. To have deserted his post would 

 have been death to all en board. Back of him 

 stood the trusty fireman, who occasionally 

 poured water on him. 



At Skunk Lake 60 more women, children and 

 men found refuge in the shallow water and 

 dirty mud, the women walking out in the 

 water until it reached their waists With their 

 hands they bathed their burned faces in mud 

 and water. Many of them were seriously 

 burned on the train. Many lay in the mud, 

 covering themselves with it, and as o ten as it 

 became baked a fresh coat had to be added 



Many, on leaving the train, rushed off toward 

 a marsh, and others ran further along the 



