The roaring flames, once started in such a season, are fanned by the winds which the heat generates, and, gathering strength, roll forward with resistless impetus; dense, resinous forest growths succumb before their assault, rivers are leaped by columns of fire, and everything goes down before the destroyer. In a holocaust of this character, all ordinary means of fire fighting are in vain; the houses and barns of settlers feed the devouring giant, whole towns are swept away, until at last the flames either find nothing further upon which to feed, or are quenched by a storm of rain. The most disastrous forest conflagration which Wisconsin has known, occurred during the 8th and 9th of October, 1871. There had been a winter with little snow, and a long, dry summer. Fires had been noticed in the pine forests which line the shores of Green Bay, as early as the first week in September. At first they did not create much alarm; they smouldered along the ground through the vegetable mold, underbrush, and "slashings," occasionally eating out the roots of a great tree, which, swayed by the wind, would topple over with a roar, and send skyward a shower of sparks. Gradually the "fire belt" broadened, and, finding better fuel, the flames strengthened; the swamps began to burn, to a depth of several feet; over hundreds of square miles the air was thick and stifling with smoke, so that the sun at noonday appeared like a great copper ball set on high; at night the heavens were lurid. Miles of burning woods were everywhere to be seen; hundreds of haystacks in the meadows, and great piles of logs and railroad ties and telegraph poles were destroyed. For many weeks the towns along the bay shore were surrounded by cordons of threatening flame. The people of Pensaukee, Oconto, Little Suamico, Sturgeon Bay, Peshtigo, and scores of other settlements, were frequently called out by the fire bells to fight the insidious enemy; many a time were they apparently doomed to destruction, but constant vigilance and these occasional skirmishes for a time saved them. Reports now began to come in, thick and fast, of settlers driven from blazing homes, of isolated sawmills and lumber camps destroyed, of bridges consumed, of thrilling escapes by lumbermen and farmers. On Sunday, the 8th of October, a two days' carnival of death began. In Brown, Kewaunee, Oconto, Door, Manitowoc, and Shawano counties the flames, suddenly rising, swept everything within their path. Where thriving, prosperous villages once had stood, blackened wastes appeared. Over a thousand lives were lost, nearly as many persons were crippled, and three thousand were in a few hours reduced to beggary. The horrors of the scenes at New Franken, Peshtigo, and the Sugar Bush, in particular, were such as cannot be described.