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In-depth

Previous In-depths Landmark land settlement Carbon Conundrum Caribou in Canada The Mackenzie Delta Torngat Mountains Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) Travels with Louis British Columbia's Gulf Islands Moose on the loose Sustainable cities Icebergs Canada's musical landscape Quebec's James Bay Ottawa Valley Green with jade Hunting for cures Wild horses Canada's Bison Canada's place in the world Lessons learned in schools Power of powwows Cougars in Canada Greenland sharks Boreal birds Arctic grizzlies Lake Erie's Fire in the boreal forest Energy matters Parks for all Bighorn sheep Finding our way in the wilderness Shipwrecks of Nova Scotia Canada's grizzly bears

Contents Feature - Forest fires Let it burn! The forest of fire Smoke Jumper Canada's incendiary past GIS Safe campfire Facts Cartographer's table Games CG vault Re:sources

Almost every Canadian who owns a television remembers the west-coast fires of 1998 — images of huge orange flames and great plumes of black smoke combing through conifer forests like hellish fingers. The roaring inferno and soot-streaked faces of firefighters filled our screens and no matter the heat of the fire, the images chilled our hearts. The "Great Fire of '98" changed not only the physical landscape of British Columbia but also our history. As far as natural disasters go, forest fires log in twice in the top 10 worst natural disasters in Canadian history. From the hundreds killed in the Miramichi Fire of 1825 to the millions spent on fighting the Salmon Arm Fire in 1998, here are eight forest fires that have rocked Canadians and our landscape.

Miramichi Fire, 1825
Place: Miramichi, New Brunswick
Size of burn: over one million hectares
Number of people affected: 160 people killed, but hundreds thought to have drowned trying to escape into the river
Property destroyed: Newcastle and Douglastown villages
Cause: People — land clearing and slash burning

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Black Tuesday, 1911
Place: Cochrane, Porquis, Goldlands, South Porcupine and parts of Timmins, Ontario
Size of burn: 200,000 hectares
Number of people affected: estimated death toll is 73, although some report hundreds
Property destroyed: very little remained in these villages
Cause: unknown

Matheson Fires, 1916
Place: Matheson area including Kelso, Val Gane, Proquis Junction and Iroquois Falls villages
Size of burn: 500,000 hectares
Number of people affected: 244 people were killed
Property destroyed: 49 townships
Cause: people — escaped clearing fire
Note: worst wildland fire in Ontario's history

The Great Fire, 1919
Place: Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta including Lac La Biche, Alberta
Size of burn: 2.8 million hectares
Number of people affected: 300 people were left homeless
Property destroyed: estimated at $200,000
Cause: natural — low snow levels the previous winter, spring drought and high winds stirred by lightning

The Manitoba Fires, 1989
Place: Over 1,200 fires throughout Manitoba
Size of burn: more than 2.5 million hectares
Number of people affected: around 25,000 people evacuated in 32 communities
Property destroyed: over 100 homes
Cause: natural — drought conditions
Note: worst in province's history

Salmon Arm Fire, 1998
Place: Salmon Arm, British Columbia
Size of burn: more than 6,000 hectares
Number of people affected: approximately 7,000 people were evacuated
Property destroyed: over 40 buildings
Note: it cost over $10 million to extinguish

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