Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1881-10-07
A Vivid Picture of the Forest Fires in
Michigan.

Fires had been burning in Sanilac, HUI
ron and Tuscola counties, but no one ap-
pretended any danger. Farmers had set
fire to slashings to clear the ground for fall
wheat, but this happens every fall, and
the fact that not drop of water had fall
en- in from fifty to seventy days was not
considered by those who saw the smoke
clouds and replied that there was no dang
er. There was danger. Behind that pail
OF smoke was a greater enemy than an
earthquake. and it had tornado at its
back and two hundred miles of forest in
the front. From noon until 2 o'clock a
strange terror held the people in its grip;
then all of sudden the heavens took fire,
or so it seemed to hundreds. In some To-
calities it came with the sound of thunder.
In others it was preceded by a terrible
roaring as if tidal wave were sweeping
over the country. Almost at the same
minute the flames appeared in every spot
over district of country thirty miles
broadly one hundred in length.
At RichmOndville. ten miles above SAM
lac, one hundred and fifty peopls had COM
teams, cows, pigs, sheep, and no fear of
the fire which they knew was burning a
mile away. at O'Clock the flames rushed
out of the woods, leaped the fences, ran
across the bare fields and swallowed every
house but two, and roasted alive dozen
people. It is hardly forty rods to the beach
of the lake, and yet many people had no
time to reach the water, Others reached
it with clothing on fire and faces and
hands blistered. The houses did not burn
singly, but one billow of flame seized all
Of nd a1. fo 10Th in,
ten minutes.
saw many and many spot where the
pillows of fire jumped clean half-mile
out Of the forest to clutch house or barn.
The Thornton family were wiped out with
the exception of a boy. Thornton had
hltched up his team to drive the family to
place of safety, but when he saw that
they were all surrounded by the flames he
qnhitched the horses in despair. Before
they could be Embarrassed they bolted in
different directions. and the old man be-
came so confused that he ran directly to-
ward big slashing, which was then a per-
feet mass of fame, and dropped and died
with his head toward it.
Meantime the mother and children had
taken refuge in the root house. This was
structure mostly sunk in the ground and
the roof we'll covered with earth. Here
they were all right for time, but when
the father failed to join them one of the
sons went out to see what caused the de-
lay. He was hardly out of the place be-
fore the door through which he had passed
was in flames. In this emergency he ran
to a dry creek, and by lying on his face
and keeping his mouth to the ground he
lived through it.
talked With a woman who lived neigh
Dor to the Thorntons and who escaped by
fleeing to field of ploughed ground. This
was only few rods from the root
house, and she said it was fully an hour
before the screams and sbrieks and groans
from the people insjde grew quiet in death.
One by one they were saiocated by heat
and smoke, and their bodies presented
most horrible appearance.
To one riding through the district it
seems miraculous that single soul escap-
ed. The fire sWert through the green
trees the same as the dry 1t ran through
fields Of corn at the rate of twenty miles
an hour, aud fields Of eloYer we're swspt as