Annotation:Miramichi Fire (Air) (2)
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MIRAMICHI FIRE. Canadian, Air. The Great Miramichi Fire of October 7, 1825, in the area surrounding the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, Canada, ranks among the most devastating forest fires in North American history. The forest fire raged over one-fifth of New Brunswick destroying several towns and driving 1500 people from their homes and destroyed some six thousand square miles of land in the Miramichi area. A newspaper, the Miramichi Mercury of February 28, 1826, reported that at least 160 people had perished because of the fire, and that 3078 were suffering because of it. Other accounts claim that at least 200 had died. The fire is featured in popular culture, including in folk songs, as well as in Valerie Sherrard’s historical novel, Three Million Acres of Flame. John Jardine, an eyewitness to the catastrophe, wrote a poem (turned into a song) in 1825 that survived in oral tradition in New Brunswick and Maine. The first three stanzas (of twenty) go:
This is the truth now I tell you,
For my eyes in part did see
What did happen to the people
On the banks of the Miramichi.
The seventh evening of October
Eighteen hundred and twenty-five,
Two hundred people fell by fire
And it scorched those who did survive.
Some say it was because the people's
Sins did rise to mountain high,
Which did ascend up to Jehovah,
He would not see and justify.
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