GREAT BUSH FIRES IN AMERICA.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 29, 9 November 1871, Page 3

GREAT BUSH FIRES IN AMERICA.

The Achovate to-day has accounts of the fire in the following counties: Brown, Kewaunee, Daor, Oconto, Outagamie, Manitowoc and Shawnee. It estimates that an area of 1,500 square miles is being burned off. Three saw mills are definitely known to be burned ; others are said to bo burned, but the reports need confirmation. In Kewaunee county from sixty to eighty dwelling houses and barns have been burned, and the inhabitants are seeking the lake shore for safety. At Horn’s Pier a store with goods, six dwelling houses and shops, with barns and other buildings, were burned, and it is said that the inhabitants saved themselves by fleeing to the pier and taking up the planks communicating with the shore. Two Rivers, Two Creeks, Ahanapee and Kewaunee and other villages have been more or less damaged. -In Daor county great quantities of cord wood, railroad tics, telegraph poles, and other property, has been burned, in addition to the losses in barns, fences, &c. On the west side of Green Bay and Fox River the flames extend from Menomonee nearly to Oshkosh, a distance of 120 miles in length ami 30 in breadth. This region is one of alternate pine and hard wood timber, and it is very thickly settled with milling and farming settlers. Hay stacks, fences and bridges on the roads are mostly gone ; in some cases large lots of pine logs in the dried up streams are burned. Very little travel is practicable, and it is with difficulty that definite particulars can be obtained. Along the line of the C. and N. W. railway tie fire extends close up to the track on < iti; i side for many miles between Depone am. Appleton, threatening the bridges ami culverts, burning fences and ties and cordwood, and requiring the closest vigilance in operating the road. Along the extension of the same road, now building northward, a considerable amount of lies, and one of the labourer’s shanties with all its contents, have been destroyed. Deer and bears come out on the railroad and wagon roads, and could be shot, but nobody has time to devote to that purpose. On the line of the Green Bay and Lake Pepin Railway grade, half a mile of corduroy superstructure, three thousand ties, and hundreds of cords of wood belonging to the road, have been burned, besides property much greater in value belonging to the farmers. All the bridges on the line of the Manitowac Road, for twenty miles east of Green Bay, are consumed. The fire extends to the city limits of Green Bay on the east, and running over the adjacent marshes. The city is not regarded as in danger, though cinders and ashes are falling in the streets. The smoke is so dense to-day that buildings two blocks distant are not visible. On the west, the fire has approached the village limits of Fort Howard, immediately opposite on the river, and large forces of men are engaged in staying its progress.