The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-11-08
of the Great Michigan Fire.


A correspondent of the FIreman's
Journal, who has lately gone over the
territory devastated by the great fire in
the forests of Michigan last fall, says his
observations are conclusive that phe-
nomena aside from the ordinary condi-
tions of combustion were developed. In
the first place the fire created at least
two veritable storm centers which had
the essential features of storms, and es-
pecially the spiral winds. The evidences
are confirmatory of the belief that this
storm center, after it became fully de-
veloped, consisted of heated body of
air or gas in state of combustion, which
was constantly fed by the smoke and va
por driven to the center by the whirling
winds and the gases generated in the
combustion of the pines and other resin
Gus woods. This body of air, or burning
gas, if it may be so called, by its heat ae-
quired an ascensive force, but by the
rapid forward motion of the fire was
sucked forward and devoured, actually
preceding the fire proper. 1t is evident
that this body was of intense heat, posi-
bly, as great as 400o Fahr., at which
point oxygen and carbon unite. That
such body of luminous vapor
existed, detached from the fire, is as
serted by many who saw it from a dis
tance, and those who were under it, but
who escaped from the fact that it passed
above their places.
The idea is further sustained by the
fact that the fire jumped whole patches
of inhammable slashings, and alighted
beyond, lifting and falling in its forward
motion like balloon touching the earth.
Fences in the center of broad fields burst
into blaze as if by explosion, and
others nearer the fire escaped. A man in
fighting the fire took off his
trowsers, fearing they would catch
fire and burn him up, and
left them in furrow in the middle of
field remote from any combustible
material When he went to get them
he found them burned, and six quarter
dollars that were in the pocket melted
together. A set of spoons were served
the same way at another place.
Mrs. Lock and five children were
burned to ashes, nothing but their bones
remaining in the middle of the road, one
hundred feet from any heavy timber.
Green timber was dried and burned, and
perhaps the most conclusive evidence was
the apparently spontaneous appearance of
| fire in stumps and fences when no sparks
were falling. These blazes appeared of
white light and indicated chemical union
of carbon and oxygen. Another general
feature is the fact that the fire appeared
to move forward in parallel lines of vary
ing width, and that in these lines every
thing was burned, and frequently to
ashes. At the edge of the track fence
would be burned square off, Just as though
it had been cut or sawed perpendicularly
a house would be taken and the barn
left; wagon and tanning mill were
within five feet of each other, and the
wagon was burned to ashes and the fam
ming mill not charred. 1t would be i'm
possible, under ordinary circumstances,
to burn wagon without piling COM
bustible material over it, but of this
nothing but the iron was left.
Finally, the storm and fire disappeared
simultaneously; that is to say, the fire
was dependent upon the storm, or seeon.
Diary to it-that it was prevented from
lingering in the track or from burning
sideways. In from two to three hours
the fire was practically out where it had
passed, indicating that the prime cause
of the rapid combustion was in the storm
which passed, and which passing, perhaps
carried in its wake condition of atmos
phere opposed to combustion. This by.
pothesis explains pretty much all the
phenomena except the balls of fire, which
exactly correspond with what is known
+ as "ball lightning" but which is form
of electricity wholly disputed by some
but recognized by Prof. Loomis.-Sciers
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