A PRAIRIE FIRE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 276, 14 August 1908, Page 9

A PRAIRIE FIRE.

J.' <AV.MAGNIFICENT',.SPECTACLE .AND;:.: '.' , TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. .. The possibility of a prairie fire is not a' light in which lifo 'in' modern Canada appeals to tho ordinary reader. A young settler, in the Far West gives, a. thrilling experience in the course of, a letter to his •friends at Home. ' He says:— " I have had an experience which, I trust; will never occur again —a very bad prairie fire. We are in a district called the Craigantler, and its area is 280,000 acres of land. Yesterday afternoon it was all prairie, last night at 9.45 it' was entirely, burnt. It was this way. . "At-four- o'clock yesterday I was working about three and a half miles from the camp, when, happening to turn around, I saw a huge volumo of smoke curling up from behind a ridge in tho direction of our shack. Well, I ran ahead and told Mr. Van; consequently at 4.10 wo were going for homo as fast as the team could pull us. When wo got at the top of the ridge wo could see that the fire was about two and a half miles beyond our place; and talk .about a beautiful sight! " Just imagine, wo could soo ton miles of fire front, and'if you havo ever seen tho amount of smoke and . smell gra'ss fire sends' up, imagine, what ten miles of it sonds up— it is terrible. A fire guard runs right through the centre of the district, and we galloped to tho direction wliere ive thought the fire would strike. • The guard is to assist in keeping the fire on one side of tho district; but it was of no use, the fire simply crept across an 18ft. ploughed road of earth as . if it hadn't been there. "Up till then there had been no damage as far as we were concerned, but the wind changed and blew directly towards our camp, so we drove back along the guard and began lighting buck fires, in order to stay the progress of the. fire. It was no use, so we made for tho shack in an attempt to save it. When we cot to it we lit a series of buck fires in order to increase the width of our fire guard. All the timo the fire was coming on quickly, and the roar of it was terrible, whilst the. smoke made' day appear night; things became so alarming that wo got the sick man out of his bed and made him work, and evon tho Chinese cook. "When wo burnt back about fifty feet all around the shack all of a sudden there was a roar, and tho bunch of us made for the snack, and noilo too soon, the smoke had us nearly suffocated, and although it was nearly 6.30, I imagine, and daylight, yet with only fifty feet to go we couldn't see a foot ahead of us, and to make matters worse we had to. run through our own fire to -get to tho shack. Well, we got into the shack and just waited for the worst, and it camo with a roar,- but thank Heaven, it didn't get us, but swept off ■ down the country. Another came along but we fought it off too; took us till 8.40, and all of us were singed.

"This may seem exaggerating, but it's not nearly true enough, it was terrible, and I never want' to see another one. Imagine what a, grand sight it was, although I must say we didn't appreciate it at tho time. However, we are safe for a year now, but tho country is a desolato looking place, and all our work of the past year is wiped out, so it means double work for us this year.. •"Now, don't bo alarmed at this, for another one can't take place, but there was a moment yesterday when all of us thought it -was ' all up' with us —but our buck fire saved us, and had we been thirty minutes later I firmly believo I wouldn't bo writing' this letter. Imagine. 280,000 acres in this district burnt out in four hours and fortyfivo minutes, and tho fire still burning down tho country about fifteen miles away from us. It's impossible to tell any damage that has occurred."