Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1910 — FIGHTING FOREST FIRES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FIGHTING FOREST FIRES

FOREST fires, the worst enemies to conservation that exist in the nation, have again swept their way through millions of feet of valuable timber and sacrificed the lives of those who went out to fight them and protect their homes and towns from destruction. The recurrence of these great fires has been so regular as to prepare the country , for like disasters almost every' year. In 1908 they reached the forests of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and southern Ontario, wiping out entire towns and killing many settlers. Within a few years great conflagrations have Tun through the Adlrondacks and the forests of the south and southwest. Is there no way to stop this waste of property, or to protect settlers and small towns in the midst of the •woods? The question 1b asked on •very hand; is hurled at the forest service in Washington, and is the subject of general comment in sections where true forest conditions cannot be appreciated. The forest service experts declare that there are ways to prevent these annual fires; but these methods cannot be employed with any certainty of success with the existing forces of wardens and rangers, or the amount of money now provided by •the federal and state governments for forest supervision. Three things must be accomplished, ■declare the foresters: The causes of fire must be eliminated; the conditions in the woods which help its npread must be done away with, and the people who use and frequent the forests must be educated or forced to give up careless practises in the handling of fire. Protection the Only Way. ‘ “The first measure necessary for the successful practise of forestry Is protection from forest fires,” says Henry S. Graves, chief forester of the United States. To this, end the forest service has bent every activity of recent years; yet the fires that have wiped out timber worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in thb far northwestern etates recently, hardly paused in their ■course to look at the puny protective efforts of the forest rangers and fire wardens. To stamp out fire, or to prevent it, a force four times ;s large as that now evisting is immediately necessary. This is admitted by Chief Forester Graves. In addition. there is needed money enough to permit the thorough equipment of the forests with well-built roads and trails, over which the firemen can quickly reach a blaze; apparatus near at hand to fight the fires; patrolmen along all railroads to put out sparks; a complete telephone system so that fighters may be hurried to the scene of any fire, and stations at every strategic point in the woods, inhabited by rangers and fire wardens equipped for immediate duty. Since 1906 the forest service has built 4,850 miles of telephone line through the woods. Yet in many sections of the tig forests of the northwest, one watchman has to care for more than 100.000 acres of timber and often without the aid of telephone communication. In Germany there is a fire warden for practically every 1,000 acres of forest. If thorough communication can be established and fire wardens stationed at frequent intervals, aid may ultimately be close enough to the incipient fires to prevent the outbreak of conflagrations such as have recently devastated the northwestern States- Similar conditions must at the same time be developed in the private forest areas, to insure safety from forest fires. Protection is the slogan of the forest experts today. They declare it is Hot surprising that great fires occur, when more than 75 per cent, of the private timber lands of the country have no protection whatever; less than one-fourth enough men and equipment is provided for the national forests, and the user of the forests are only partly educated to the elimination of fire causes. The Fire Watcher’s Work. “The risk from fires can never be entirely eliminated.” say Chief Forester Graves, “for in the forest there is always inflammable material which is very easily ignited. They may. however, be largely prevented, and under efficient organization their damage may be kept down to a very ■mall amount.” It Is a picturesque business, that of fire watching, as practised In some Oi the larger national forests today.

Two or three men in one of the ranger’s cabins which have become such an important adjunct of forest guardianship, are near the summit of some peak, from which a view can be had over many miles of woodland. In the early part of the year, before the rains cease and the ground dries out, these rangers and wardens are employed at ordinary duties through the forest, repairing trails, establishing telephone lines, watching for careless campers and lumbermen, cleaning up dangerous underbrush and the like. As the dry season advances and the conditions develop that are especially favorable to forest fires, these men become the "lookouts” of the forest protection force. Day and night they scan the distant horizon with strong glasses, for traces of smoke or reflected flames. In the woods, from such an eminence, a fire may be seen for miles, and the first traces of it may be detected by these lookouts long before it would be observed from a ranger’s cabin much closer to the scene. Men and Money Needed. It is to cope with such conditions that the forest service is asking for more men and better organization of the forests. At present the men on the hilltop stations use methods as primitive as those of the Indians to flash the news of a forest fire t© distant stations where help can be secured. Often there is no telephone at the mountain lookout station; or no telephone connection to other points where rangers and fire wardens are supposed to be on duty. Smoke signals Buch as the Indians used, made with a blanket over a smoldering fire, or pillars of smoke or flame from a number of fires, constitute the methods of communication used by many of the forest ranger stations, and with which all of the men in the woods are expected to be familiar. The heliograph, flashing the light of the sun; flag signals such as are used in the army, and other systems of signaling, also are used. In some places where a small settlement exists near the fire lookout, a unique means of summoning aid is used. A small"windmill Is erected at the lookout station, equipped with a revolving ball in which mirrors are set at every angle. The watchman who discovers traces of a distant fire, sets his windmill in motion if the day is bright, and departs at once for the scene of the fTre, secure in the knowledge that the signal will call to his aid every man who sees the flashing mirrors. To get rid of the fire causes Is the first lesson taught the forest guardians. and the end toward which the forest service is constantly working. The origins of fires in the woods are roughly classified as follows: Sparks from locomotives, sparks from sawmills and donkey engines used in forest operations, camp fires not properly safeguarded or extinguished, the burning of brush to clear land, the burning of grass to improve pasturage. carelessness of smokers and hunters, incendiarism and lightning. From the last there can be little protection except equipment to fight the flames as soon as they make their appearance. From every other cause, however, the standing forests of America can be fairly well protected with proper equipment and funds. Ways of Fighting Blazes. The firemen of the woods learn that the night is the best time for their fight. The damp air retards the progress of the A fire that will sweep ten or twelve miles in the daytime will eat its way slowly at night, when there is little breeze and the air is heavy. Then the fire fighters attack it with all the energy they possess, and often bring it within control. The forest fire will bqm up hill with such rapidity that no strategy of the fire fighters can cope with It. Sweeping from the bottom of a canyon, or the foot of a hill, it rushes up the slope like a hot blaze up a chimney, carrying the fire to the top in an incredibly short time. Once at the summit of the hill, the fire burns more slowly descending the other side, and the fire fighters have an opportunity to dig trenches, cut Qre lines and prepare other defenses to head it off and stop it. The source of the greatest danger to forests is the presence of dry tops and piles of brush left by lumbermen and by the windfalls of heavy storms.