Fig. 107. Effect of Fire and Wind. Colorado. U. S. Forest Service.
The statistics of the actual annual money loss of the timber burned in the United States are not gathered. In 1880 Professor Sargent collected much information, and in the census of that year (10th Census, Vol. IX) reported 10,000,000 acres burned that year at a value of $25,000,000.
In 1891, the Division of Forestry collected authentic records of 12,000,000 acres burned over in a single year, at an estimated value of $50,000,000.
In the Adironacks in the spring of 1903, an unprecedentedly dry season, fire after fire caused a direct loss of about $3,500,000.
In 1902, a fire on the dividing line between Washington and Oregon destroyed property amounting to $12,000,000. Within comparatively recent years, the Pacific Coast states have lost over $100,000,000 worth of timber by fire alone.
During September, 1908, forest fires raged in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania. The estimates of loss for northern Michigan alone amounted to $40,000,000. For two weeks the loss was set at $1,000,000 a day. The two towns of Hibbing and Chisholm were practically wiped out of existence, and 296 lives were lost.
Certain forest fires have been so gigantic and terrible as to become historic.