After dinner, as we were starting back to the woods to work again, some one noticed smoke coming up over the hill south of the camp. On investigation we found that a fire, set by the train that had gone by was spreading through the dry grass and brush and heading for the camp and the log landing. We had some drays with barrels of water on them, ready for fire and we quickly got a team and hauled them up on the hill, but the fire came so fast and furiously that we had to abandon the water barrels and retreat. Then the fire caught in the hay around the barn and the foreman ordered all hands to get everything out of the camps, and the horses out of the barn, but before we had half of the stuff out, the camps were blazing. Then the log pile caught in a dozen places, and in a few minutes it was a roaring furnace and the heat was so intense one could not go anywhere near it. 

There was two and a half million feet of logs in that pile, or the equivalent of about 5000 cords of wood, and you can imagine how hot it was. The logs having been peeled nearly a year before were dry and, as you know, Hemlock makes an awfully hot fire. It took most of the afternoon for that pile of logs to burn but the fire made a good job of it and there wasn't a piece as big asa canthook stalk left. 

There was a year's work for an average crew of fifty men, and the choicest timber off from nearly a section of land, gone up in smoke, all on account of a defective locomotive screen and an accumulation of dry brush and old logs on the right-of-way.

Look closely at the top ridge of this mill roof. Those are barrels of water set up in a tight row. They were hauled up and filled by hand to make ready for any anticipated fires. Sparks from forest fires traveled for miles on the fire heated winds and the workers first duty was always to save the mill. Men would form bucket brigades on the roof to keep it wetted down. The future of the people in a whole area often depended on that mill. Photo - Oconto County WIGenWeb Project archives.

We had two fires near Munger Lake in May, 1920, which caused a loss of $8602.38, and the peculiar thing about that fire was that it was the first time we had ever insured any forest products in the woods. What was burned was Cedar logs, posts, and poles which were decked along side of our logging railroad. 

We also had a bad fire one spring on McCauslin Brook between the Reservoir and Wheeler Dams where John Magee had logged the Hemlock off from Section 28, Township 33, Range 15, and decked the logs on the bank of the Brook, the intention being to drive them down to Wheeler Dam and hoist them out and load on cars during the summer. Nearly all of Magee's winter work was burned up.

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Someone appealed to Company M at Oconto. Captain Hall took the matter up with Madison and was instructed to go up there and look the ground over and see whether or not he thought it was necessary to order out the Military Company. 
 

Captain W.B. Hall was Captain of Company M, U.S. Army, out of Oconto during World War I and remained so in the military reserves. He became a Major of the 42nd Division in World War II and ended his career as a Colonel. Photo - Oconto County WIGenWeb archives.
 
 

When he returned and reported on the fires they told him to take the Company at once to Lakewood, which he did. Also about midnight some of our mill men and yard crew were loaded on a truck and taken up there. When I got home on the 5:00 A. M. train from Chicago I was met by Donald DeWitt, who drove me up there at once. We found that the fire had gone down during the night, and all of the men and boys were out putting out the smouldering logs, and everything was quiet and it looked as though there was no more danger. However, as soon as the sun got up the fire started up again and by noon it was raging furiously and burned all that day. However, the men were all strung out along the edge of the woods and they stopped the fire from running into the woods, and that evening it rained so the fire was extinguished. The Military Company went home that night but they had had one day's experience fighting fire and sleeping on the ground. At that time there was no equipment for fighting fire in the woods except shovels, except where there happened to be some water handy, when it could be carried with pails. The way they used to fight fire was by clearing a fire line ahead of the fire, and then as the fire approached the men would scatter along the fire line and throw dirt on it, and very often were able to stop the fire. If, however, the fire was running with a high wind and caught in the tops of the trees, then there was nothing to be done except run and get away from it. Later on fire pumps were put on the market, which could be placed at some stream or lake and were very effective if the water was near enough to the fire so it could be reached. One of our camps north of Townsend was saved entirely by a fire pump, although the fire burned everything around the camp on all sides. 
 

After the Forest Service was organized and equipped with pumps and other fire fighting equipment, with a system of fire towers so that the fire department was able to get to a fire when it first started, there were very few bad fires and for the last few years there have been almost none. The old tops and brush have rotted down in the old slashings, and it has grown up with green brush and trees so there is now not very much danger of large fires such as we used to have.
 
 
 

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