THE OTTAWA FIRES.
The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa
fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the
17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned
into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps,
throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa,
bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain
had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to
such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous
exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry,
that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the
condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean,
Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief
space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a
dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings,
out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned
cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals,
and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common
destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with
extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden
with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some
smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their
flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their
bodies.
The soil in places was burned so deeply as to render farms worthless,
while the highways were made impassable by the destruction of bridges
and corduroy roads. To the horrors of fire were added those of
starvation and exposure; it was many days before shelter could be
provided, or even food furnished to all who needed it. The harvest, just
gathered, had been utterly consumed in the barns and stacks; and the
green crops, such as corn, oats, turnips and potatoes, were so scorched
in the fields as to render them worthless.
The number of families burnt out was stated at over four hundred, of
whom eighty-two were insurers in the Beaver Company to the extent of
some seventy thousand dollars, all of which was satisfactorily paid.
The government and people of Canada generally took up promptly the
charitable task of providing relief, and it is pleasant to be able to
add that, within two years after, the farmers of the burnt district
themselves acknowledged that they were better off than before the great
fire--partly owing to a succession of good harvests, but mainly to the
thorough cleansing which the land had received, and the perfect
destruction of all stumps and roots by the fervid heat.
One or two remarkable circumstances are worth recording. A farmer was
sitting at his door, having just finished his evening meal, when he
noticed a lurid smoke with flames miles off. In two or three minutes it
had swept over the intervening country, across his farm and through his
house, licking up everything as it went, and leaving nothing but ashes
behind it. He escaped by throwing himself down in a piece of wet swamp
close at hand. His wife and children were from home fortunately. Every
other living thing was consumed. Another family was less fortunate. It
consisted of a mother and several children. Driven into a swamp for
shelter, they became separated and bewildered. The calcined skeletons of
the poor woman and one child were found several days afterward. The rest
escaped.
The fire seems to have resembled an electric flash, leaping from place
to place, passing over whole farms to pounce upon others in rear, and
again vaulting to some other spot still further eastward.