The Forest Fires in America.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 61, 6 September 1894, Page 2

The Forest Fires in America.

HEARTRENDING DETAILS. THREE HUNDRED SQUARE MILES DEVASTATED. [PER FBES9 ASSOCIATION. I Washington, September 5. Minnesota has been the theatre of devastation and ruin, and most horrible scenes have occurred. No less than 300 passengers by train are missing. In one district over which the body of fire had swept, 150 corpses were found within the space of five acres. At Hickley, 40 unfortunate people, surrounded by flames, took refuge in a waterhole, but the tire swept over its surface, aud some were burned to death and others drowned. The train mentioned in yesterday's cablegrams had caught fire before it reached the swamp, and in the panic that ensued twelve people leaped out into the raging tire and were killed. The counties of Kennebec and Carlton were denuded of villages. Thousands of people are camping out without food, and are surrounded by charred corpses. No house or village in the path of the fires escaped. A hundred and fifty million trees were destroyed in Minnesota. The smoke renders the navigation of Lakes Superior and Michigan dangerous. Details of a most shocking description continue to be received. Later. Hundreds of those who escaped from the fires are partially blinded by the heat scorching the eyeballs. It is now ascertained that threo hundred square miles were devastated. Fresh fires have sprung up in Chat- | auqua, Erie, McKean, and Elk counties, ! and it is feared they will reach the cultivated country covered with wheat fields. ______________