THE FOREST FIRES

Southland Times, Issue 16786, 15 July 1911, Page 6

THE FOREST FIRES

WORST IN CANADA’S HISTORY. DREADFUL DETAILS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.—Copyright.) OTTAWA. July 13. The victims of the fires are believed tc include two hundred employees of the Dome Mine, who were penned in the ■hafts. Corpses strew the streets of South Porcupine. Many prospectors’ bodies have been found. Fifteen were driven Jr. to the lake in their efforts to escape the flames, and all perished. Six hundred inhabitants of Cochrane escaped in a relief train before the town ■was destroyed. Part of the town of Tisdale has been destroyed. Four thousand residents in the neighbourhood escaped in a relief train. The flames were checked only after many houses had been dynamited. The town of Kelso has been abandoned to the flames. A relief fund has been opened in Toronto. The fire in the Porcupine district is the worst in the history of Canada. The death list totals over 300 and the property loss amounts to many million' pounds. A great wall of flame is sweeping the mining camps, closing in with startling ■uddenness. In Golden City men refusing to fight the flames were forced to act at the revolver’s point. Frenzied foreigners, when attempting- to rush the boats on which the women and children were being removed to safety, were held back by armed men.