In the early part of this century, the explosive growth of Northern communities meant that towns developed faster than services to protect them. A case in point is the series of three disasterous forest fires that swept through one corner of Northern Ontario in 1911, 1916 and to a lesser extent in 1922.

The stretch of communities from Cochrane to Cobalt were susceptible to forest fires for a number of reasons, including the rough-shod clearing of towns out of dense forest cover. A lack of firebreaks and open fields meant that forest fires could sweep over these towns without much to stop them. Quick development also meant that most buildings were built of wood. Townsites were also haphazard, with scattered buildings and no real infrastructure. In retrospect it seems like a recipe for disaster, and it was.

1911

The summer of 1911 was a hot, dry one. Small fires had been spotted around the area, but not worried about; forest fires are a fact of life. Ominously, the Hollinger mill in Porcupine burned to the ground on May 19th. Again, fires were a fact of life; almost immediately, work started on renovation of the mill.

On July 11th, winds whipped up a smaller fire into a conflagaration. South Porcupine was burned to the ground, the residents trapped in the fire with no way out. The wind was reportedly so powerful that it sucked tree trunks out of the ground and flung them through the air, where they would either explode or be dropped into another piece of tinder dry fuel. At the railway station in South Porcupine a boxcar of dynamite was waiting to be unloaded, and "people marvelled afterwards at the size of the hole" when it eventually blew up (Pain, 160).

The human stories are distressing. At the West Dome Lake Mine, near Dome, the mine manager hurried his family and employees down into the mineshaft. The passing fire pulled the oxygen from the mineshaft. They were untouched by the fire, but unfortunately asphyxiated. With the entire town and surrounding forest razed, the fire soon passed on. The next day, the same fire swept through Cochrane. The best estimate of the losses include 70 dead in the South Porcupine, with an untold number lost in the surrounding bush.

1916

The fire of 1916 is known as the Matheson fire because of the complete annhilation of the town. Other smaller communities suffered as badly, including Nushka.

July 30th was a frightening day, almost a repeat of the events that had happened only five years previously. This time, the fire consumed nearly 800 square miles of forest, and the toll reached an unheard of 282 official deaths.

Nushka, just down the T&NO line from Matheson, was particularly hard hit. As the fires approached the town, the local priest, Father Gagne, led 56 people to a field outside of town. There was no other place to go. All 56 were asphyxiated when the flames surrounded the field. As a memorial to Father Gagne's efforts, the community was renamed Val Gagne.