People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1894 — FOREST FIRES. [ARTICLE]

FOREST FIRES.

Great Damage in Wisconsin and Michigan —Town of Vesper BurnedMarshfield, Wis., Aug. 29.—The little town of Vesper was destroyed by a forest fire Tuesday. The large saw and planing mills belonging to the Sherry-Cameron Lumber company and twenty-three buildings, all there were in the town, were burned. A dispatch from Marengo, in Ashland county, states that forest fires are still raging along the line of the Wisconsin Central railroad. Farmers from adjoining towns report fires in every direction, doing much damage and requiring a constant watch to save their homes from destruction. Five deers and several bears were seen Saturday almost within the eity limits, having been driven in to escape the heat and smoke in the forests. The aggregate amount of damage done thus far to timber, wood, ties and logs, besides farm dwellings, hay and farm implements, will reach many thousands of dollars. There is no sign of rain, and as the leaves have commenced falling the situation begins to look desperate. Ishpeming, Mich., Aug. 29.—While smoke is very dense throughout the entire upper peninsula fires, though umero us, are confined principally to old slashings; few homesteaders have been burned out, and heavy damage done to poles, ties and posts in the woods, but little injury io standing pine. A heavy rain would extinguish the fires or a high wind would cause a rapid spread and great destruction of timber. Duluth, Minn., Aug. 29. —Word was received from Hibbing that extensive fires were driving into town the logging and mining operators near there. A crew of over 100 men arrived there from one logging camp in the WrightDavis operations, their camps having been burned, as well as over 150,000 log feet of logs that had been skidded and were ready to be hauled to the river. The fires are burning fiercely in old choppings. Hibbing, though a village of one year, has a fairly good water system. The smoke from fires In this vicinity and northern Michigan have been so dense here that fog signals have been blown almost continususly for a week and navigation at this end of Lake Superior is very much hindered.