TERRIBLE FOREST FIRES.

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 26

TERRIBLE FOREST FIRES.

SAD LOSS OF LIFE. (Pbom Oca Own Cokbhspondbnt.) Sin Fbancisco, September 20. - in awful fire swept over 600 square miles O.F country in the SUtes of Wisconsin and Minnesota on tjl« 2nd inst. Celebrated as tbjs country if for the gigantio nature 9I Its achievements and catastrophes, this its last rUitation is regarded as the most terrible i$ has been called upon to witness and to share. JDver the large tract of country named the flames- swept like a cyclone— devouring towns villages, factories and depots, life and Vegetation, with horrible aridity. When the fire had spent itself and the darkness of the imoke had cleared away, it was known that ♦40 men, women, and ohlldren had perished, feither by burning, suffooatton, or drowning ; as many more, were reported missing) a dozen Jorras had been wiped ont of existence ; rail>trays and telegraphs had been destroyed: bridges reduced to a few charred timbers ; and $he surface of the rery earth itself scorched ana transformed into a bleak Inferno, from whence ttose the stench of smouldering flesh and the waft oi agony oS those who 'sought for the dear ones that were tot. Heroes abounded. It would occupy 'Columns to tell how men faced death in its most awful forms to save their fellows. There ll Engineer James Root, who kept at his post .with flames breaking in upon him, falling glass rutting his flesh in cruel wounds, his clothing Jgjfl fire, until he had brought his train of maddened men and women through the roaring forest of fire in safety. Telegraph Operator i&ann, v.'~ 0 would not quit his post, but stayed and wired that an incoming train should 'retrace its steps, and take all on board ib 'joould, and then fell dead at his desk. Engineer Berry and Conductor Powers, who loaded their freight cars with people and carried them through the fiery furnace in view of the fact that they might rush into another train coming jn the opposite direction and right over a 130 ft bridge that crushed and fell 15 minutes afterwards. These, and such as these, are, and were, the men and deeds that throw a halo of glory, and cause the tears to flow, and thrill the hearts of our common humanity with pride, wound and amid all the appalling record of lamentation and despair with which the land is filled. THRILLING SCENES. We take the following erraphio account from the correspondent of the Biolbou «ie Argus :— Last year water was the destructive agent in our calamitous events ; this year fire has done the dreadful work. In last August and September great cyclonic storms ravaged the J3outh Atlantic coast and the low-lying shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Towering tidal-waves submerged the coast islands, taking nearly 2000 lives. This year America has suffered from no storms of thiß character, buo i« the northern pi tie >fore«ts, where a drought of four months' duration and an exceptionally warm cummer Lad made all vegetation inviting food for flamef, terrible fires have utterly destroyed • score of towns, and with them have gone not less than 700 lives. The los« caused by the burning of standing timber and prepared lumber cannot well fail below 20,000,0G0d01. These fires were in the riohest part of the groat jplao belt whicb stretched across fee

continent from the Atlantic io the Rocky Mountains on both tides of the Canadian boundary. For two mouths they had been burning in the northern parti of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the State* which touch Lakes Michigan and Superior. In July three or four towns in Wisconsin were destroyed, and in one of them— Phillip*, with ft population of 2000,— there was a lois of 40 lives. The district which was swept by the flames two weeks ago, and in whiohsomany human beings met horrible deaths, lies in North-eastern Minnesota and North-western Wisconsin, between the thriving city of Duluth, at the western extremity of Lake Superior, and the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, noted for their beauty and wealth, and for their great flour mills. This district U traversed by two or three prominent railroads, and the doomed towns had grown up in the forest around the railway statioas. Hinokley, the oite of which is now a desert, had at least 1200 inhabitants, and nearly half of them perished. This was the largest of the towns. The terrible whirlwind of flames struck Hinekley at 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, September 1. The force developd by these fires was like that of a oycloue, and the heat was so intense that in aome instances the bodies of victims were at once reduced to ashes. The bewildered people of Hinekley had scarcely time to seek refuge anywhere before the flames •wept away their houses. A small stream ran through the town, and many made their way to it. But the streasa was shallow, and although some saved their lives there by throwing water upon each other or upon the blankets that covered them, a Urge number perished. Scores of bodies were taken from the bed of the river on the following day. In the outskirts of the town was a large swamp or morass. To this place about 200 went, some in waggons, some on foot. Many perished on the way, and from the swamp itself 130 bodies were afterwards taken. In a large pit from which a railroad company had taken gravel there was an accumulation of foul water 4ft deep. Here more than 100 sought ref vga, and nearly all of them were saved. In a small town a few miles from Hinekley 90 persons tried to escape from the flames in the waters of a little creek. On the following day 67 bodies were taken from this creek, and nearly all who did not lose their lives were severely burned. The number of the dead in Hinokley would have been much larger but for the service rendered by two railway trains. One of these was a fast train on its way from Duluth to St. Paul, which reached Hinckley, carrying 150 passengers, just before the flames swept the town out of existence. Immediately after the train stopped it was besieged by the inhabitants, who climbed into the cars and implored the engineer to save them. It was already dark owing to the smoke, and whan the engineer perceived that the bridge just before him was burning he undertook to escape by returning northward as far as a muddy pool called Skunk lake, Bix miles distant. The story of that six miles' journey \$ one of heroism and great suffering. It was a race with the flames at the rate- of 60 miles an hour. Passengers were so crazed by the heat amd invading Ire that some of them threw themselves from the windows. When the muddy pool was ! reached the entire train was burning. The engineer, James Boot, had been almost surrounded during the last two miles by fire, which streamed back from the burning luggage oar, and was enabled to stand at his post only by the water showered upon him from the water tank by his assistant, who preserved his own life by getting into the tank. At Skunk lake there was an acre of water and several acres of mud. When the biasing oars stopp< d the passengers ran to the lake and cove . themselves with mud and water. Root hud only strength enough to shut off the steam, and as he fell to the floor of his cab, exhausted, burned, and bleeding from cuts made by broken glass, he was lifted oat and carried down to the mud, in which he lay for four hours. Nearly 200 inhabitants of Hinekley escaped on this train. They remained in the 1 mud and water until the middle of the night, holding wet garments over their heads, and keeping these garments wet by throwing water on each other. The next day more than 70 i bodies were found lying along the railroad between the lake and Hinokley. The cars were consumed on the shore of the lake immediately after the refugees got out of them. The other train was also on its way southward from Duluth, but on another line, the two roads intersecting at Hinokley. On this train the heroes were Powers "(the conductor) and Best (the engineer). There were 300 passsngers, and when the train stopped at Hinokley to take on water the flames were near at hand. These passengers urged Powers to return northward at onca. He refused to go until he oould take a considerable number of the terror-stricken inhabitants with him.' Having attached to his train several freight can, crowded with the people of the town, Powers and Best steamed away with more than 400 refugees. They had to oror.s a trestle-work bridge 1600 ft long and 115 ft higli at the edge of the town, and thin bridge wt.p already burning. Knowing that the train would be consumed if it should stop, Powers and Best pushed ahead and crossed just in time, for the bridge was destroyed a few minutes later. The remainder of the journey was uneventful. During the next two days nearly 400 bodies were found in and near Hinekley. In most, cases they were partly consumed and could not be identified. Of 96 taken from the swamp oa Sunday identification was possible in enly four instances. The cyclone ot fUme had swept an area of 1000 square miles, and in the greater part of it there was nothing to bs seen except charred stumps and baked soil and gravel. Scores of families on farms in the vicinity of the little towns had been burned in this great furnace, and the work of exploration and interment is not completed. Sportsmen who had gone into the forest from the Urge cities are misting, never to return. Large numbers of deer and smaller wild animals purisbed. Not even the Indians, co well veraed in woodcraft, were able to escape. A few miles from Hinekley there were found the bodies of 9 3 aborigines, who had left their reservation on a huating expedition. The experience of several smaller towns was very much like that of Hinekley, although the loss of life in them was not so great. I can recall no other calamity of this kind in whioh the stories of survivors and the incidents observed by those who have been on the ground indicate suffering so terrible and bereavement S'j phthvt'c. A farmer living near Hi'vklay killed himself aftsr he had seen hii wife, h's fc vir»-(v ir»-(- c.'i<\\iiveii, hi-< acn-iu-law ai.il t^mil? | b 'rued ti> iloath, !ind ali hin properly dfifcroyed. Ou h f<\rru so^en ra'.leu from Hinclcioy a hoy 12 years aid v.HeffUtid alive in a well, end tb« bodies* of his patents and hin three sisters were lying near the month of the well. Two boys were running from Hinckley to Skunk lake, ani j with fcfceru were a woman »nd her two ioas. She wa6 badly injured by tbe flames, and at last she oould go no further. Her two soaa, who oould have escaped, remained by her side, anjUbeir btdjM were found, (bete ia a kneeling

position. Ib is a ourioas fact that by the side ol the dead mother was found her satchel, containing 3500d0l In notes, which had not been touched by the fire. In the little river at Sandstone, where about 150 person* were saved, the partly submerged refugees prayed and sang hymns throughout the night, led by a young Swedish clergyman, who succeeded in preserving the life of » babe whom he carried in his arms, and whose parents were lost. Christian Best lived with his father and nine brothers and sisters on a farm not far from Hinokley. The fire oame while he was at his hayricks. He got into the river and prayed. In the morning he sought his house, and found it in ashes, with the bodies of his relatives near at hand. Near Skunk lake 14 bodies were found in a group, all in a kneeling posture with folded hands. Hans Paulson entrusted his wife and four children to his wife's brother, who also had with him his wife and five children. Paulson saved the three children of another man, and afterwards discovered that he was alone in the world. The 12 had perished. •' Please don't mind me," said a lad who was found with his feet burned off; "gobaok and save my poor mother." His mother had been dead for some hoars. Two miles from Hinckley was a colony of five families and 22 louls, who had recently oome'f rom another State. One member was absent and in a safe place at the time of the fire. When he returned the 21 had perished, and he could not identify even one body. The most heartrending sights were the bodies of mothers with children in their arms. The body of one mother was found crouching over those of three children, whom she had vainly sought thus to protect. John Been saved the liveß of three or four persons by throwing water on them. At last he implored someone to throw water on himself, and died as the first pailful fell en his burning olothes. In the little town of Mission Creek the inhabitants saved their lives by lying on their faces in a potato field, which the flames seemed to avoid. A herd of deer came out of the forest and huddled in among them, like so many cows. At the last meeting of the Waitahuna Farmers' Club, during a discussion as to the advisability of starting a dairy factory at Waitahuna, Mr M'Ara said that he had been supplying the Milton factory — where obeeßemaking was carried on — with milk, having to Eay £d a gallon for railing it from Johnston to Eilton, and he could safely cay that he derived more profit from the sale of his milk than he did from any of the other products of his farm. On Sunday Mr J. D. Hunter discovered a poaching contrivance in the Waikaka. It consisted of a piece of string with lead at each end and floats of wood attached at regular intervals with a hook baited at the end of a piece of string of about 9in or 12in in length. It was clearly not intended for catching eels, as the ittrings with the hooks were not Jong enough for deep water, but were evidently intended for catching trout near the surface. The lambing in the Waitahuna district this year promises to run into unusually high per* centages. Some of the settlers there have ewes that have given birth to as many as four lambs. One small owner has four ewes that have each had four lambs— a record-breakiug incident, we (Tuapeka Times) should be inc'ined to think. Another farmer estimates that he will have at least 130 per cent, of lambs this season. The Aberdeen Journal and the Evening Express issued in connection therewith are now edited by Mr David Pressly, late of the Belfast Evening Telegraph's editorial staff, and who for 11 years edited the Londonderry Sentinsl. Mr Pressl? is a native of Aberdeen, and the Journal is the only Conservative morning newspaper in Scotland, so that his new sphere of action will (says the Irish Times) be a most congenial one. The versatility of his genius, his wide knowledge of political affairs, and his thorough acquaintance with every phase of " the Irish question," will enable the journals with which he has become connected to ''speak with authority" on that topic. Prior to his departure from Belfast Mr Pressly (who is a nephew of Mrs Matthews, of Hawthorn Hill, and of Mr J. H. Pressly, of Duuedin) was entertained at a complimentary farewell supper by the Ulster Institute of Journalists.