The Fire
On October 10, 1918, two men working near a railroad siding northwest of Cloquet saw a passenger train pass by the siding, and soon thereafter discovered a fire burning through grass and piles of wood. The fire could not be contained, and by October 12, fires had spread through northern Minnesota.
When asked about the scene at Cloquet after the fact, Albert Michaud, a special Police Officer in Cloquet was quoted by the New York Times,
| “ | "At 6 o'clock last night, a forest ranger gave warning that unless the wind died down the townspeople would have to flee...The scene at the station was indescribable. There came a rush of wind and the entire town was in flames. The trains pulled out with the fires blazing closely behind them. Women wept and clung to their children, while others cried frantically for their missing ones. The flames licked at the cars. Windows in the coaches were broken by the heat. The engineers and firemen alternately stoked, to give the boilers all the fuel they could stand." | ” |
Early reports of the fire circulated rumors that the fires were intentionally started by "enemy agents", but Cloquet Fire Chief F.J. Longren later confirmed that such rumors were false. One cause of the fire is believed to be from sparks from the railroad tracks that lit the dry timber, but the rapid progression of the fire through northern Minnesota was caused by factors such as drought conditions, high winds, and a lack of firefighting equipment.
Read more about this topic: 1918 Cloquet Fire
Famous quotes containing the word fire:
“I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)