The Guardian recently had an article about someone who preserved the accounts of the 1960 West Prince Fire, and are now available online. It's really worth your time to read some of the fascinating and heart-breaking accounts from this forest fire.

A Guardian-Patriot reporter in 1960 observed 73-year-old Jane Brown standing in a ditch, crying. Her house and barns had just been consumed in one of the worst forest fires to strike Prince Edward Island.

Over a three-week period, starting the week of Aug. 21, close to 18,000 acres of forest and farmland were destroyed in the North Enmore to Black Banks area of West Prince.

George Wooton’s story tells of Mrs. Brown walking through the ditch and finding bottles of her preserves which had been placed there for safe-keeping by volunteers who tried in vain to save her property.

Fifty years after forest fire ravaged West Prince, stories now online
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Arts/Cultural-activities/2010-09-02/article...

The stories of the West Prince Forest Fire of 1960 can be found here, in PDF format:
http://www.thelmaphillips.ca/page3/page3.html