Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1894-09-06
FLAMES DRIVEN BY A GALE.
Thrilling ID scription of the Race OF the
Flames Through the Forests.

Thrilling ID scri ptlon Oh the mace oA '"o
Flames Through the Forests
Duluth. Mimi, Sept. 3.-The relief
train that went out yesterday afternoon
to succor the fire victims returned tins
morning and the tales of those who came
in add horror to piled up horrors of the
night before. The dead are now known
TO exceed 400, that number OF bod1es nav
ing been found. While all through the
woods for distance of forty miles bod
les are doubtless scattered thlckly. Every
niece of news from the front increases the
previously made estimates OF losses OF
life. Many Of those VINO return say 1t
is an utter mpossibility to give any
guess as to the total deaths, nor Will
there be any accurate statement un'li
parties of searchers are sent out and
iroDnea off the railroads at intervals UI
every mile or two and thorough patrol
of the burned district is made.
Resides the dead there are the living,
often in worse condition than their friends
who sleep the last sleep. They are shell
tered in wells, cellars and fields, without
food or clothing or the possibility OF get
ting either. The very earth burned.
The loss of cattle has been terrible.
Much of the section burned over was
rich dairy country and it is scarcely an
eXaggeration to say not an ANIMAL IS lett.
1t is not until now that any plausible ex-
PLANTATION of the terrible destruction can
deTstand why a passenger train on the
track and under control could be totally
destroyed in q few minutes and the
swamps and rivers dried up as by a
drOuth.
Survivors say there was a cyclone Of
fame. 1t could be ikened only to the
rolling up of hurricane or the bursting
Of q tornado, the wind being fire and
the smoke death. Before the fire struck
the devoted settlement there was mighty
wind. chimneys being blown down, barns
topped over and hay stacks leveled., 1t
blew at the rate of over sixty miles an
hour. The fire, pushed on by this fear.
full gale, went onward with the leaps OF
a demon. StumpS, logs and buildings
thousands of feet from the nearest flames
or sparks burst into a blaze as it the very
air was powder and were consumed in an
instant. In q farming section fully thirty
miles long the fire licked up all the vege-
aule matter and even the soil itself, and
there is now nothing left of the prosper
Gus farms but burned and broken rock
covered by a few inches of ashes.
Thirty people who spent Saturday night
in a lake near Einlayson, standing up to
their chins in water all the time, say the
flames seemed almost alive. They would
see q cloud Of fire miles away and high
in the sky. It would swoop along and
down. bounding to the earth and up again,
rolling on like huge bilow These bill
times coming so close to the water that
it seemed as if they could reach up and
touch the fire. At these times they would
get completely under the water.
Louis Mottez, a farmer who saved
himself by getting into dry well with
there all night, has identified some TWEEN
ty-seyen bodies found by the relief ex-
petition from here They are all these
of settlers. In one place Il mile north
Of the disaster to the limited train was
a mother and four children named Lynn.
Nearer to the train are the bodies of
Mrs John Westerland and seven others,
two of them q Miss Mckay and her
child, Near by We're the five children of
Ed Greenfield. Along the track We're
three women and a boy, all without a
vestige Of clothing. Indeed, nearly all
bodies found so far are almost if not alb
solutely naked, there being hardly enough
clothing about and under them to show
that they We're dressed.
St Cloud, Mimi, Sept. 3.-The first eye
witnesses of the great forest fire to reach
st. Cloud from the scene Of the fire We're
the train men Of No. 4G which ditched
one and one-half miles on the other side
Conductor Z. G. Parr, Conductor Will
Nogel, Fireman Joe Sacher and Brake
man John Delaney and Michael Whalen
John Vandersluiz, the Great Northern
Epress messenger. John Vandersluiz thus
tells the story of their awful experience:
1--WE left Hinckley at the usual time
Saturday afternoon. 1t was smoky and
the air was hot and oppressive A terri
be wind was blowing as hot as from q
furnace. We had not gone far when the
smoke began to be so thick that it was
perfectly dark. Our train consisted of an
engine, baggage car and coach
AS we plunged through the darkness,
smoke and flame, and rushed over the
small bridges ana wooden culyerts. we
could feel them give under the weight of
the train. The ties. bridges, fences and
trees above our heads we're burning.