Show sister r of father marceau Marce all U writes s of disastrous new england fires the following letter was received by the rev V C marceau pastor of st marguerite s church from his sister madeleine who is secretary to the geology department at the university of new hampshire it ells tells of the new england forest fires which just devastated that region to an outsider such fires are hard to understand unless the person is aware that woods and for ests are in the close vicinity of eiery new england ity and thus threaten them with sparks which ignite scores of fires within a city at one and the same time dear val if you are receiving the BOSTON POST you ou would have seen som sorn bersworth ers worth in the headlines yester day morning course I 1 know you re aware of new england forest fires but to us it was more realistic that that we were and are still sur rounded by tire fire forest fires have been raging all about us for a week now but last thursday afternoon the wind start ed blowing with 40 mile an hour gusts and the fire that was burn ing in the farmington woods head ed straight for the city of koches roches ter when I 1 got home at 4 30 p in we had to drive through the streets of somersworth Somers worth with our headlights on for the smoke was so thick about 5 clock bernice and her kids came down to somers worth after being evacuated from their home at the time of their arrival their home was in direct line with the path of the fire and they had no hope of their home being saved after seeing his family safely in somersworth Somers worth joe went back to rochester and wet down his home and grounds with a garden hose with hardly any pressure to speak of while down at the corner of the street along the railroad tracks at the far end of their street running parallel with the main street the flames were twenty five feet high and changing their course grad bally it sped right behind the fris toe ble hospital with ambulance and buses ready to evacuate all the patients even though it was a fire proof building all this time we were sitting listening listen ng to the radio shouting warnings fire in rochester is out of control even though thousands of men are fighting it portland street homes have been destroyed path of fire in direct line with the city of somersworth Somers worth men DES needed in somers worth please report at once at the fire station while cruising cars with loudspeakers were running up and down the streets telling us approximately the same thing at this time they believed that som bersworth ers worth would be completely lev lied as the pumping station would be the first to go and all we have hae are artesian wells then the wind changed ive never sat through a longer night the children were in bed but never slept because they had seen most of the fire while dav ing to somersworth Somers worth its something they 11 never forget finally joe was able to get back to somers worth to tell bern berri that their house had been spared and that he was going back to help fight the fire and didn dian t know when he d get back to somersworth Somers worth as all traffic was restricted sometime during the night the wind died down and once more the fire was under control about two miles from somersworth Somers worth friday w u as a re celati lati ely els busy day with no one daring to leave the house for fear that we wed d have to evacuate if the wind picked up again which it did at night but this time it was a southwest wind waterboro Water boro limerick cookish News field shapleigh and most of alfred right outside of sanford has been destroyed biddeford Bid deford kennebunk Kenne bunk kennebunkport and portland have also suffered buffered beav ily according to the rochester of ficiala their city alone has suf a million dollars worth of damage and 63 houses destroyed we well 11 send you some of the local papers when we can get our hands on some bar harbor has been wip ed out too but we figure th that at the millionaires can take the loss more than these small towns john D elers s estate was threatened in bar harbor and he sent a re quest to pay ten dollars an hour to any men who wanted to protect his home but I 1 guess people were too busy trying to save the town to be impressed by his offer what s nice about these small town folks in an emergency everyone was in there pitching regardless of whose property it was I 1 didn dian t intend making this such a lengthy letter but once you get started you could go on and on mama was afraid get radio i reports and would worry about our I 1 I 1 home which at the present is not in the line of fire although at one time on saturday the fire had a long that milton back road five mile front charging toward milton all the way to berwick a which directed it to the berwick woods and into maine were we re still in great danger today monday because the wind is supposed to pick up again this afternoon southwest winds we hope I 1 wont attempt to give you all the f re news because there are so many but about ten maine towns have been completely wiped out with not a trace of a house left standing some of these towns are edna called up friday morning and said that their city was threat ened by fire on thursday night a al so they had lots of smoke but most of it coming from the south ern new hampshire fires william also called and said that he was called out of work friday as the woods at the end of his street were on fire he seemed to think that the fire was out but it its s almost impossible to say that a fire is completely out until weve we ve had some ram rain we haven t had a drop of rain since september I 1 and hard ly any rain at all during the sum mer the temperatures have been in the se seventies enties and eighties all dur ing the month of october so you can just imagine how dry every thing was another thing that is pathetic is that most of these fires were set by fire bugs cape ann is almost completely destroy eded cape cod has also suffered hea heavy heay y losses one fire bug was caught in gloucester mass and was beaten within an inch of his life by angry farmers who had lost everything but the clothes they wore which reminds me most of these people didrik didn t have time to save a thing as the speed of the fire was as terrific all this talk may only serve to give you a scare but that s not what its intended for unless the dmd changes or a new fire breaks out we are out of danger because people are patrolling our streets night long and the fire crews are organized whereas last thursday everyone was caught unaware an other thing dont don t try to telephone because it is impossible it took edna and william better than half a day to reach us and rochester lines have been burned down |