Dean,

Right. To some extent, you can trace the spread of logging activities across the country based on when the large fires happened (though it is a bit more complex since some of the big fires are not directly related to logging, and some of the major logging burns didn’t occur as a single large fire, but rather, as a decade of constant burning across a huge area.)

The Minnesota fires are from the first couple of decades of the 20th century, during the peak of logging.

Well put

After virtually all the white and red pine were cut down, the state caught on fire, and hundreds of people died.

That is a theme — I’m sure you know about the Peshtigo fire (same time as the “great” Chicago fire), the most deadly in US history. The estimate for number of deaths is broad, from about 1200 to 2500. There were also three big fires — all in areas that had been logged off — in Michigan: near Holland, near Manistee, and near Port Huron, all on the same day as the Peshtigo fire. The best estimate for the three MI fires is 600 to 1000 dead
total. Those were all October 8 1871 — is that the same time as the fires you refer to?

Coincidentally, I was recently reading about the sack of Constantinople by part of the Fourth Crusade. They weren’t as complete in their devastation as modern industries but I’m sure they did the best they could.

It seems to me that loggers and fisherfolk are the biggest whiners about their heritage and lifestyle being attacked when some agency and/or environmental groups tries to limit the damage while, ironically, it is the economically-driven harvest-it-all activities of the loggers and fisherfolk themselves that pave the way for the extinction of their way of life. Too many people in America seem to be still imbued with the 18th & 19th century concept of a virgin land to exploit just over the horizon when they’ve finished with where they are.

It seems we may see how many times people can be fooled by the same kinds of companies/corporations discussed in Greg’s post now that the person pretending to be a president, our president has decided that coal is our energy future and the incoming new head of the EPA is reputed to be an ex-coal industry lobbyist.