The 1918 Forest Fire at Long Lost Lake
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
The 1918 Forest Fire at Long Lost Lake
By Peter Hovde, LLL Historian
Major fires in our type of forest occur about once every 200 years, on average. With industrial-scale logging, disastrous fires became far more frequent. In 1894, forest fires converged on the town of Hinkley, burning it to the ground and leaving 418 people dead. In 1908, it was Chisholm’s turn, followed by Baudette-Spooner in 1910. In 1918, the Cloquet-Moose Lake fire killed 438 people and wiped out 27 villages and towns.
“Slash and burn” and “cut and run” were phrases used to describe logging operations at the time, leaving behind clear-cut forests and piles of slash. “Slash” refers to branches and other debris left on the forest floor after cutting timber. Piles of tinder-dry slash fed these fires into firestorms. Strict regulations on slash removal were passed in 1911 to reduce fire intensity, as well as requiring spark arrestors on railroad steam locomotives to prevent fires from starting in the first place.
The last major fire in our area occurred in 1918. Large piles of slash, the sun-dried layers of needles on the former forest floor, and a dry winter in 1917 all contributed. However, the fire was not a natural event.
Formed in 1904 and headquartered at the Chimney site, the Nichols-Chisholm Lumber Company logged until the old-growth pine ran out in 1917. Unhappy with the strict new regulations on slash removal, the company removed its locomotives' spark arrestors instead. An eyewitness described the locomotives running up and down what is now McKenzie Trail, “throwing out embers as big as a fist.”
The resulting fire did get rid of the slash, but it also burned almost everything else. The fire consumed the dry top layer of needles and debris, leaving the damp lower layers untouched. When the wind shifted a day or two later, the fire burned back across the newly dried detritus. It continued burning until little remained, leaving “the bare, coverless appearance of the area” for years.
Today, evidence of the 1918 fire remains in the form of charred standing tree trunks and “cat’s face” fire scars on living trees. Both the charred trunk surface and the heated resins within the wood protected some dead trees from insects and rot, while fire scars on living trees still indicate the direction of the fire.
All of this leaves us wondering what the county plans to do with the big slash pile on McKenzie Road.