106 



Report of the Forest Commission. 



to fire, nothing like this had ever been known. 

 They could give no other interpretation to the 

 ominous roar, this bursting of the sky with 

 flames and this dropping down of fire out of 

 the very heavens, consuming instantly every- 

 thing it touched. 



No two give a like descripticn of the great 

 tornado as it smote and devojred the village. 

 "It seemed as if the fiery fiends of hell had 

 been loosened, 11 said one. "It came in great 

 sheeted flames from heaven, 11 said another. 

 " There was a pitiless rain of fire and sand " 

 " The atmosphere was all afire " Some speak 

 of "great balls of fire unrolling and shooting 

 forth in streams. 11 The fire leaped over roofs 

 and trees, and ignited whole streets at once. 

 No one could stand before the blast. It was a 

 race with death, above, behind and before 

 them 



"The heat increased so rapidly, as things 

 got all afire, that when about 400 feet from the 

 bridge and the nearest building I was obliged 

 to lie down behind a log that was aground in 

 about two feet of water, and by going under 

 the water now and then and holding my head 

 close to the water behind the log I managed to 

 breathe. There were a dozen others behind 

 the same log. 



"The fire suddenly made a rush, like the 

 flash of a train of gunpowder, and swept in the 

 shape of a crescent around the settlement It 

 is almost impossible to conceive the frightful 

 rapidity of the advance of the flames. The 

 rushing fire seemed to eat up and annihilate 

 the trees. 11 



track. It is thought that many of these are 

 lost. Some few died of suffocation within a 

 few rods of the pond. Many women had their 

 clothes partially burned and torn from their 

 bodies. One mother was found nursing her 

 child to prevent it being suffocated. 



In four miles 44 bodies were found, some 

 burned beyond recognition and others un- 

 scarred, having died from suffocation. It was 

 a four or five mile run back to Skunk Lake, 

 which is little more than a mud hole, the mud 

 and water covering not more than an acre. 

 The train had gone but a short distance before 

 it L was surrounded by the devouring flames. 

 Hot blasts of flame struck the cars, setting 

 them on fire in places and breaking the win- 

 dows on both sides. 



The baggage car was soon a mass of flames, 

 which streamed back over the tender and the 

 engine, setting fire to the engineer's clothes 

 and scorching his face and hands. 



At the spot where once was the abode of 

 Frank Anderson, nothing remained but a 

 cellar and several bodies. The wife lay in the 

 yard. Near by was the body of one of her 

 children. In the cellar were four other chil- 

 dren and the husband. He was burned to a 

 crisp. 



It was the most awful sight I ever witnessed, 

 sail he. Where the St. Paul and Duluth and 

 the Eastern railway of Minnesota cross, near 

 Hinckley, I saw a heap of half -roasted bodies. 

 I should think there were from 20 to 25 in the 

 group, men, women and children. Their cloth- 

 ing was nearly all burned off, but many of 

 them still had shoes on their feet. It appeared 

 as though these unfortunates had tried to get 

 away from the flames, and that they all be- 

 came overcome with the heat at the railroad 

 crossing, and that the fire fiend found them 

 easy victims. Their faces were all badly 

 bloated; still I think their friends could readily 

 recognize them. I should think from all the 

 reports that there were probably 500 that per- 

 ished in the timber near Hinckley. I saw 

 from 70 to 75 lying dead on the ground at 

 Hinckley myself. 



Mr. Donnelly, in writing of the great Chicago fire, synchronous with forest 

 fires, says: "The fire was spontaneous. The story of Mrs. O'Leary's cow 

 having started the conflagration by kicking over a lantern was proved to be 

 false . It was the excess of gas from the tail of Biela's comet that burned up 

 Chicago." 



To substantiate this theory of spontaneity Mr. Donnelly quotes from the city 

 fire marshal's evidence and report: 



