The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1899-01-21
1lRRoas on PRAIRIE flRes.
some Thrilling Examples of shs
Past.

estS in uOrtuern Micuikhn "hu Visoohhin,
other recent fires tht swept across areas
Of prairie lands In Manitoba and North
DaKota, and still other Tres that burned
over square miles among the Rocky
mountains have revived train Of remin-
iscences among the old-time plainsmen
out that way concerning their own expe-
riences in great prairie fires two or three
decades ago. One who has never seen a
prairie fire, such as used every fall to
dsvastare the plains from the Missouri
river to the Rocky mountains, and from
the Rio Grande TO central British Ameri-
tea, can have no idea what such enormous
conflagrations were. No one has yet ade.
quately described the frightful sublimity,
the grandeur and the awfuiness of sen
of lurid flames, tens of thousands acres
broad, rolling. tossing and rushing for
ward like an enraged titanic monster and
leaving in the train blackened and smok-
ing ruins from horizon to horizon. Mark
Twain has said that the most colossal
awning thing In all nature Is "A great tire
on the plains, such as he saw in Nebras-
ka 10 the fail of 1860
Prairie fires with solid walls of flames
20 and 80 feet high, extending 10 and
more miles as the wind might be blow
ing, have been common. Descriptive
writers and artists have We'd yith one
another In an effort to depict the sensa-
tions that animate one who looks upon a
sweeping, roaring prairie tire but all
efforts havs failed The burning of Mos
ct aaa
have been fancifully pictured in song and
stary, but 1t has remained for the naked
savage of the plains to tell with some
degree of adequacy of the paririe IRE
at is says he, 1.-THE spirit of fire, who
in anger has drawn his bow OF flames
across the path Of the red man."
so large part of the prairie is now
broken up by settlements that the tres
have lost much of their old-time size and
grandeur: but the very fact OF the settle
meut makes the danger to property aud
life the greater. When the country, from
| the Gulf OF Mexico TO the northern boun-
| Diary of the United States, and even be-
yond was almost unsettled. great FIRE
could sweep almost from one end OF II to
the other and do no damage except to
the game 1t might overtake in its mad
| cha Sc. With settlement the danger tn
man begins, and as long as thore are any
con siderable stretches of paririe there Is
always danger unless . he farm buildings
ard villages are carefully provided with
fire breaks
In 1874 some hunters started prairie
fire In Bon Homme county, ID. T., oppo-
site Niobrara, Neb. There was strong
south west wind and 1t swept to the north
west for over 800 miles, licking up the
dry prairei grass and rolling up great col
umns OF smoke on the soft September air
for upward OF week. This one was
comparatively narrow, being kept from
spreading TO the west by the Missouri
river and from making much progress to
the east at first by the Jim river, and
later by the wind, which shifted more to
the east; hut in some places tine tract
burned over reached a width of as miles,
and IL averaged, perhaps, fully 90
1t found streams to impede its progress
on the side of the Missouri; what few IL
did encounter It had no difficulty in leap
| ing. Indeed, the distance fire will jump
| the grass grows rank and tall to the very
waters edge, seems almost past belief. In
| case % fire cannot cross in one place there
| is usually place where 1T can, and so II
rnshes on. frequently leaving large I'M
| burned irregular A shaped places along
| the streams or lakes, but leaving the
country black. barren and forbidding.
This fire took over Il week TO 90 rath'
more than 100 miles. This may seem
slow, but several things must be taken
into consideration. In many places the
grass was short. which necessarily him
dered its progress There was httie or ne
| wind during nights, SO 1t, of course,
! Travelled slowly then. AT other times,
when it got among stretches OF blue john
| or other tall grass, 1t, ike any other
prairie TIRE, Travelled at such "a rate thai
| u horse, be he ever so last, could not long
keep ahead. The front was, of course
| irregular, and, as usual 1t would Ire
quently happen that two long advancing
aims woulu Join several miles ahead Of
the main line Of flame and rush onward.
forming a new front and leaving rapid
| ly disappearing island OF unburned grass
behind.
The left of the mighty advancing col
umn of fame was retarded the second or
third day In passing through the biJou
hills Later the right became entangleJ
| among tie Washington hills and fell be
hind. 1t finally died out among the co
| teaux close to the Missouri river, In the
eighborhood Of lie Beau and Boise
Cache creeks In fact, it was the river
that stopped 1t, for had it not been there,
| or had the wind got into the south. 1t
would have swept ON 80 miles further,
out OF Daokta and on into the British
| possessions, no one knows how far. Prob
ably about 1000 square miles OF prairie
was burned over ny this moving sea OF
| tire. A bout 30 hunters and a few fami-
| lies We're caught in that fire and burned
| to death hundreds of butfaloes an
| telopes were roasted.
Among the most devastating of the last
great fires on the plains was one in 1885,
A prairie fire swept down from British
| Columb ia, across the International line
| into Dakota, until it reached the North
ern Pacific railroad. AT it's greatest width,
| in northern Dakota, the flames were 100
miles wide. Over 10000 square miles
were covered by the sweeping lire.
livery town on the great plains of tie
West except in communities where the
| people are criminally careless, still takes
| precautions every autumn against the
| possib ility of devastation by prairie lres.