The bush around Matheson caught fire on July 29, 1916 and burned for days.
By the time the flames were extinguished, some 200 people had suffocated or burned to death, with coffins piled up on the railway tracks.
Whole communities were completely destroyed, including Matheson and Iroquois Falls.
The village of Nushka was wiped off the map as well. When it was rebuilt, it was renamed Val Gagne, for local priest Wilfrid Gagne, who died rescuing his parishioners from the flames.
Mrs. Aumont along with 9 of her 10 children perished. Husband and Father Simon Aumont and 5 year old Irene Amount who were not at home survived.
Harvey Monaghan was 13 at the time. He told CBC in the 1970s that his family's farm outside Matheson was one of the few left standing.
I was up on the roof and they handed water up to me. It did catch fire a few times, a paper roof, you know? And I kept putting the fires out, Monaghan said.
In the days that followed, those that survived the flames were at risk of starving, with no supplies in what was then a remote area.
A sack of flour at Monaghan's farm was turned into biscuits to feed the community, while others remember eating potatoes that were baked while still in the ground.
Amelia Veitch, who was 20 when the fire struck, said in an interview decades later, that her family was lucky to survive.
You didn't have to look far before you saw somebody worse than you. There were men with feet burnt. Their shoes started to burn and then they couldn't take them off, she said.
A century later, the so-called Great Matheson Fire of 1916 remains the deadliest in Canadian history.
Wikipedia Posted:
The great Matheson Fire was a deadly forest fire that passed through the region surrounding the communities of Black River-Matheson and Iroquois Falls, Ontario, Canada, on July 29, 1916.
As was common practice at the time, settlers cleared land using the slash and burn method. That summer, there was little rain and the forests and underbrush burned easily. In the days leading up to July 29, several smaller fires that had been purposely set merged into a single large firestorm. It was huge. at times its front measured 40 miles across. On that fateful day, the fire moved uncontrollably upon the towns of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore - destroying them completely - while causing extensive damage to Homer and Monteith.
A separate fire burned in and around Cochrane. In all, the fires burned an area of approximately 490,000 acres.
Because of forest fire smoke that had covered the region for several weeks and the absence of a forest fire monitoring service, there was almost no warning that the conflagration was upon the communities. Some people escaped on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway now the Ontario Northland Railway, while others were saved by wading into the nearby Black River or one of the small lakes in the area. 223 people were killed according to the official estimate.
The Matheson Fire led to the creation of the Forest Protection Branch of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines now known as the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Forest Fires Prevention Act in Ontario.
The great fires are the subject of the books Killer in the Bush by Michael Barnes, and pleuvait des oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier
By the time the flames were extinguished, some 200 people had suffocated or burned to death, with coffins piled up on the railway tracks.
Whole communities were completely destroyed, including Matheson and Iroquois Falls.
The village of Nushka was wiped off the map as well. When it was rebuilt, it was renamed Val Gagne, for local priest Wilfrid Gagne, who died rescuing his parishioners from the flames.
Mrs. Aumont along with 9 of her 10 children perished. Husband and Father Simon Aumont and 5 year old Irene Amount who were not at home survived.
Harvey Monaghan was 13 at the time. He told CBC in the 1970s that his family's farm outside Matheson was one of the few left standing.
I was up on the roof and they handed water up to me. It did catch fire a few times, a paper roof, you know? And I kept putting the fires out, Monaghan said.
In the days that followed, those that survived the flames were at risk of starving, with no supplies in what was then a remote area.
A sack of flour at Monaghan's farm was turned into biscuits to feed the community, while others remember eating potatoes that were baked while still in the ground.
Amelia Veitch, who was 20 when the fire struck, said in an interview decades later, that her family was lucky to survive.
You didn't have to look far before you saw somebody worse than you. There were men with feet burnt. Their shoes started to burn and then they couldn't take them off, she said.
A century later, the so-called Great Matheson Fire of 1916 remains the deadliest in Canadian history.
Wikipedia Posted:
The great Matheson Fire was a deadly forest fire that passed through the region surrounding the communities of Black River-Matheson and Iroquois Falls, Ontario, Canada, on July 29, 1916.
As was common practice at the time, settlers cleared land using the slash and burn method. That summer, there was little rain and the forests and underbrush burned easily. In the days leading up to July 29, several smaller fires that had been purposely set merged into a single large firestorm. It was huge. at times its front measured 40 miles across. On that fateful day, the fire moved uncontrollably upon the towns of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore - destroying them completely - while causing extensive damage to Homer and Monteith.
A separate fire burned in and around Cochrane. In all, the fires burned an area of approximately 490,000 acres.
Because of forest fire smoke that had covered the region for several weeks and the absence of a forest fire monitoring service, there was almost no warning that the conflagration was upon the communities. Some people escaped on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway now the Ontario Northland Railway, while others were saved by wading into the nearby Black River or one of the small lakes in the area. 223 people were killed according to the official estimate.
The Matheson Fire led to the creation of the Forest Protection Branch of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines now known as the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Forest Fires Prevention Act in Ontario.
The great fires are the subject of the books Killer in the Bush by Michael Barnes, and pleuvait des oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier
The bush around Matheson caught fire on July 29, 1916 and burned for days.
By the time the flames were extinguished, some 200 people had suffocated or burned to death, with coffins piled up on the railway tracks.
Whole communities were completely destroyed, including Matheson and Iroquois Falls.
The village of Nushka was wiped off the map as well. When it was rebuilt, it was renamed Val Gagne, for local priest Wilfrid Gagne, who died rescuing his parishioners from the flames.
Mrs. Aumont along with 9 of her 10 children perished. Husband and Father Simon Aumont and 5 year old Irene Amount who were not at home survived.
Harvey Monaghan was 13 at the time. He told CBC in the 1970s that his family's farm outside Matheson was one of the few left standing.
I was up on the roof and they handed water up to me. It did catch fire a few times, a paper roof, you know? And I kept putting the fires out, Monaghan said.
In the days that followed, those that survived the flames were at risk of starving, with no supplies in what was then a remote area.
A sack of flour at Monaghan's farm was turned into biscuits to feed the community, while others remember eating potatoes that were baked while still in the ground.
Amelia Veitch, who was 20 when the fire struck, said in an interview decades later, that her family was lucky to survive.
You didn't have to look far before you saw somebody worse than you. There were men with feet burnt. Their shoes started to burn and then they couldn't take them off, she said.
A century later, the so-called Great Matheson Fire of 1916 remains the deadliest in Canadian history.
Wikipedia Posted:
The great Matheson Fire was a deadly forest fire that passed through the region surrounding the communities of Black River-Matheson and Iroquois Falls, Ontario, Canada, on July 29, 1916.
As was common practice at the time, settlers cleared land using the slash and burn method. That summer, there was little rain and the forests and underbrush burned easily. In the days leading up to July 29, several smaller fires that had been purposely set merged into a single large firestorm. It was huge. at times its front measured 40 miles across. On that fateful day, the fire moved uncontrollably upon the towns of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore - destroying them completely - while causing extensive damage to Homer and Monteith.
A separate fire burned in and around Cochrane. In all, the fires burned an area of approximately 490,000 acres.
Because of forest fire smoke that had covered the region for several weeks and the absence of a forest fire monitoring service, there was almost no warning that the conflagration was upon the communities. Some people escaped on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway now the Ontario Northland Railway, while others were saved by wading into the nearby Black River or one of the small lakes in the area. 223 people were killed according to the official estimate.
The Matheson Fire led to the creation of the Forest Protection Branch of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines now known as the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Forest Fires Prevention Act in Ontario.
The great fires are the subject of the books Killer in the Bush by Michael Barnes, and pleuvait des oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier
By the time the flames were extinguished, some 200 people had suffocated or burned to death, with coffins piled up on the railway tracks.
Whole communities were completely destroyed, including Matheson and Iroquois Falls.
The village of Nushka was wiped off the map as well. When it was rebuilt, it was renamed Val Gagne, for local priest Wilfrid Gagne, who died rescuing his parishioners from the flames.
Mrs. Aumont along with 9 of her 10 children perished. Husband and Father Simon Aumont and 5 year old Irene Amount who were not at home survived.
Harvey Monaghan was 13 at the time. He told CBC in the 1970s that his family's farm outside Matheson was one of the few left standing.
I was up on the roof and they handed water up to me. It did catch fire a few times, a paper roof, you know? And I kept putting the fires out, Monaghan said.
In the days that followed, those that survived the flames were at risk of starving, with no supplies in what was then a remote area.
A sack of flour at Monaghan's farm was turned into biscuits to feed the community, while others remember eating potatoes that were baked while still in the ground.
Amelia Veitch, who was 20 when the fire struck, said in an interview decades later, that her family was lucky to survive.
You didn't have to look far before you saw somebody worse than you. There were men with feet burnt. Their shoes started to burn and then they couldn't take them off, she said.
A century later, the so-called Great Matheson Fire of 1916 remains the deadliest in Canadian history.
Wikipedia Posted:
The great Matheson Fire was a deadly forest fire that passed through the region surrounding the communities of Black River-Matheson and Iroquois Falls, Ontario, Canada, on July 29, 1916.
As was common practice at the time, settlers cleared land using the slash and burn method. That summer, there was little rain and the forests and underbrush burned easily. In the days leading up to July 29, several smaller fires that had been purposely set merged into a single large firestorm. It was huge. at times its front measured 40 miles across. On that fateful day, the fire moved uncontrollably upon the towns of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore - destroying them completely - while causing extensive damage to Homer and Monteith.
A separate fire burned in and around Cochrane. In all, the fires burned an area of approximately 490,000 acres.
Because of forest fire smoke that had covered the region for several weeks and the absence of a forest fire monitoring service, there was almost no warning that the conflagration was upon the communities. Some people escaped on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway now the Ontario Northland Railway, while others were saved by wading into the nearby Black River or one of the small lakes in the area. 223 people were killed according to the official estimate.
The Matheson Fire led to the creation of the Forest Protection Branch of the Department of Lands, Forests and Mines now known as the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Forest Fires Prevention Act in Ontario.
The great fires are the subject of the books Killer in the Bush by Michael Barnes, and pleuvait des oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier
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