New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-09-21

the lumber business and amid the hum of
saws and machinery the workmen listening
for the announcement to stop work to fight fire.
When the wind blows toward the town. bringing
the smoke of a forest fire fifty miles away. the
mill hands usually begin to burn the brush and
woods around their homes. Sometimes these
counter fires get beyond the control OF the men,
ana a new line OF confagration is started up to
threaten some other settlement.
When the sawmill workmen or pioneer settlers
make home in the great forests they appear to
give little heed to the dangers that may surround
them from fires. They merely clear the woods a
short distance away from the houses. and permit
the brush and limbs to lie about get dry, until
they are fammabe finder. When fire
starts in this brush it Is difficult TO check It, and
homes and sawmills frequently consumed
With the rapid destruction of forests these dis
astrous fires will diminish in number and size.
and in twenty years extensive forest CONGREGATIONS
may be impossible. At present. however. there are
scores of settlements and hundreds of isolated
homes in the Northwest which furnish the ele-
ments for an autumn tragedy.
1t is several years since one of these disastrous
hres swept through the woods and efaced whole
towns from the face of the earth. although minor
September, 1894 the towns of Hinckley Sandstone
and Pine city were wiped out of existence along
Duluth and ST. Paul. Through the bravery of a
single man; an engineer on the Great Northern.
mace of death. In the face of almost impene-
iraple wall OF nre the engineer. named Best drove
ms rescue train across miles of warped track and
lettering bridges to carry all who could get on
heroic run over TWO hundred lives We're lost in the
fire.
The most destructive fire in the forests of the
Northwest was in October 1871. Northern Wis
consin and the upper portion of the Michigan
weeks the immense stretches of pines emitted a
black smoke which spread like a cloud over the
whole landscape as far east the Atlantic coast
Peshtigo, Marinette. Menominee. Menekaunee and
Pensaukee were all good sized towns before the
fire; but when the flames died away no vestige was
left of any of them. They completely efaeea
hundred lives were lost The destructive power Of
ne the,, forest hres and mans heplessness before
and the inhabitants took special alarm even
when the atmosphere was filed with dust and
heated the atmosphere SO that curious phenomena
strike one like a blast from a furnace. The alarm
We're within few miles of their homes did the In
habitants attempt to flee
are built on the ashes Of their early
fire. ISIS and Red cSsf now See thu
nucleus of city of 4ooOo inhabitants. is built on
1889 eremated with most Of its irhabitants In
nS M was sf entirely rea by fire
lake OF the same name returned TO the site of their
Of the present city Of that name The great mills
of the Calumet and Hecla mines were burned to the
Lake Minden. in 1857 over 100000 worth Of
os yss a
desert the place, but returned and reconstructed
forest res of G iss5 both Philips WIS., aud EVEN
Mich, DESTROYED but on their ruins the pres
Many of the towns destroyed by the fire of 1894
have been reconstructed their old sites and they
seem to defy the fires that sweep through the
woods.
The question of preventing, limiting and fighting
these disastrous forest fires In the fall concerns
the lumbermen and owners of forest tracts OF
land as well the settlers. Lumbermen lose an
nually nearly much good timber through fires
as they actually cut and market. The fires do not
entirely burn up the standing trees, but they are
scorched and charred. that they cannot sell for
the best merchantable lumber. The hot air seems
to dry up the sap and life of the trees. and even
If they are Immediately cut and sawed into tim
her tbpE1 are II
Probably nothing will be done to prevent these
disastrous forest fires until the area OF the woods