FIRE AND THE FOREST RESERVES.

SITTING at my office desk I read with quiet satisfaction the following record from the monthly report of one of my forest rangers:

Sept 20th Found the fire a bout 10 miles West of the reserve line burning tord the mountains. The fire was a bout 6 miles Long & 4 Wide. Went to Work on fire

21 fort fire

22 fort fire & got it Checked

23 Watched the fire & Prevented its Breaking out

24 The same fire Broke out a gain. got it stopt.

As I read that, while I smiled, I was also thrilled through and through by it, as one would not be who did not know what a forest fire is, and what that four days' single-handed fight meant to the faithful fellow who waged it. The country over, while there are many foes before which these noble forests are by themselves pathetically helpless, the worst foe of all is fire. The hardest problem of forestry is the fire problem.

The points to be considered in a discussion of forest fires are: (1) The harm that comes from the fires; (2) their sources; (3) what can be done defensively for the protection of the forests; (4) what can be done aggressively; and (5) the resources for fighting fires.

(I) With respect to the harm that comes from forest fires, the financial loss from the burning of commercially valuable timber is most often dwelt upon. It was immense in the period of carelessness and indifference that is now happily a thing of the past. There is also æsthetically a very real loss in the burning of the forests. "The groves were God's first temples." As temples man always has needed the forests; and he always will need them, every one.

But, perhaps, the greatest harm of all comes through the far-reaching effects of forest fires upon the water supply of a community. Denude the mountains in whatever degree and by whatever cause, and at once the water supply is affected or threatened. There being no grass left, no brush, no trees, no roots or rootlets, the rain and melting snow, when they come, cannot be held back to soak quietly into the ground

until the hills are great saturated sponges. Instead, with a wild surface rush they wash the soil, bury the meadows, gully and cut the hillsides, choke the reservoirs, flood the plains, and so foam away worse than uselessly toward the sea. When the summer comes the mountain sponges are dry. And that means, if it lasts, ruin in the homes below.

After a great forest fire in Southern California one of the two reservoirs of a large neighboring city furnished the usual steady supply of pure water. The other furnished much less than its normal supply, and in addition was choked with débris. The water sources of the second reservoir were in the burned district.

Not long ago a ranger reported the effects of an exceptionally heavy rainfall of a few hours' duration. He said:

My camp overlooks two slopes similar in all respects except that one has been denuded and the other not. The denuded surface was soon covered with rushing gullying currents of water. On the other slope there was not a sign of running water. The rain was held and absorbed where it fell.

A ranchman told me that, more than once, killing fires had swept up the course of a small mountain stream behind his farm. In every case the water supply quickly failed, gradually returning only as the brush-cover was renewed.

(II) The harm of the forest fires is evident; what as to their sources? The sources of fire are more in number, and some of them are harder to deal with, than most people imagine. In the reserves of Central and Northern California 106 fires were last year found and extinguished by the forest patrol; this year, seventy-seven. In their reports the rangers name six probable sources for these fires:

men.

(1) It cannot be doubted that many fires have been caused by stockOld sheep-herders now out of the business readily tell of what used to be their common practice. Burning off the rubbish at the close of the season would better the chances for another season's pasturage. A fall fire, killing back the brush and pruning it, would give denser feed for the next spring. If the fires spread incidentally to the timber it was no concern of theirs. It is not often now that stockmen are found deliberately kindling forest fires. They have learned to be careful, sometimes through fear of consequences to themselves, sometimes because they appreciate the value of the reserves. When there is evidence against them it is usually circumstantial only.

One day my guide and I were riding along a faint trail through a country for the most part heavily timbered, but with occasional small meadows. We passed some half-dozen smouldering and creeping fires.

Who started them? Sheep were all about with their herders. It was an out-of-the-way region. No one else was there only they and ourselves.

Another day I rode for miles where a forest fire was burning, not fiercely just then, for the woods there were open and the wind was down; but it had burned for a fortnight, and a wide reach of country was overrun. With care I was able to ride across its track, avoiding the worst places, and especially watchful to keep well away from the many burned-out stump-holes with their fire-pits of smouldering roots. It was a bad fire. Stockmen were accustomed to roam at will through that region, which was not a part of the reserve; and the common report, contradicted by no one, was that it was they who were responsible for this fire and for many another of like nature and extent. But there was no legal proof.

Occasionally the guilty parties are caught in the act. A ranger patrolling his district saw at a distance a slender column of smoke. He reached the place and by hard work stopped the fire. He had scarcely done so before another column of smoke appeared close by. He reached and stopped the second fire, and a third fire. At the third fire he came upon the incendiaries. They were two fellows, small stockmen, who were deliberately undertaking to burn off the brush for the sake of more room and better feed for their horses in the coming season. The men

were inclined at first to resist and then to beg off. They were arrested and held for trial.

(2) Fires on the reserves are probably due to the carelessness of campers and hunters more than to any other single cause. The law requires that no camp-fire shall be left unextinguished; but over and over again the rangers' reports of cause read "camp-fire." Here, again, while circumstantial evidence may be abundant, proof that will convict is hard to get. The ranger, when he has stopped the fire, may follow up the campers' tracks, and come upon the party within a quarter of a mile; but he did not see them when they left the fire, and cannot prove that no one else was there to light it (“to put it out ") after they left.' However, conviction is sometimes secured.

A party of gentlemen went out for a mountain climb. After a day's walk they made camp in the upper belt of woods on the slope of the mountain from whose summit they proposed to see the sunrise the next morning. This company-company number one-broke camp about midnight and pushed up toward the summit. On their way they passed

'A common usage in the Southwest makes the expression "He put out a fire" mean not that he stopped the fire, but that he set it going. And why not?

company number two.

another company still in camp, with a great fire burning, and most of them asleep. A little later all met at the summit. There they fraternized, learned each other's names and plans, took photographs, compared notes generally, and presently, after the sunrise show, separated. Party number one came down ahead of the others. Later in the day they all met for the third time.

Now, as it happened, on the way down company number one had repassed the place of that great camp-fire of company number two, and had found that the fire, instead of being extinguished, as the law required, had been left to its own conceits; and that, instead of dying down, it had spread very considerably. It had already reached neighboring trees, and was climbing toward their tops. If the surrounding vegetation had favored, it would have been the beginning of a great forest fire. Party number one, not being prepared, and perhaps not inclined, to stop to fight a forest fire, left it to take its course; but presently, when they came upon party number two, they reported what they had seen. They warned them of the risk both to the forest and themselves, and advised them to turn back and extinguish the fire. The men freely acknowledged that they had left their camp-fire burning, but made a jest of the whole matter, commenting on the unlikelihood of any great harm following, and on their willingness to risk results. They went their way, and so did party number one. The whole matter came to the knowledge of the reserve officers. The men were arrested and brought to trial. There was no chance for a successful defence. The evidence against them was complete. They pleaded guilty. A few cases like that go a long way toward teaching men to be careful with their camp-fires.

Sometimes the carelessness is still more marked - is worse even than the leaving of a camp-fire. A young man said to me one day: “I was near getting into your clutches not long ago." "How so?" "Why, coming up the grade I got out of the stage to walk a bit for a change. I lit my cigar and dropped the match. In a minute or so there was a great hallooing behind. I looked back; and if the fire from that match hadn't caught in the pine needles like powder! We just had to fight to get it stopped!"

It need not be even so much as a lighted match. The stub of a cigar thrown from a passing team is enough, or a gun-wad. A mountaineer told me that once he warned an ignorant hunter of the risk. He added: "The man laughed at me; but presently, sure enough, we did have a big fire on our hands, started by a wad from that hunter's gun."

"But wasn't the gun an old-fashioned muzzle-loader, with paper wads?" "No, it wasn't. It was a first-class breech-loader." Gun-wads are not often a source of trouble now, but they were with the old-time gun.

Another case may be given in illustration, matching the others in the insignificance of the cause. A chipmunk was chased into a dead. log by the small boys of a camping party. The children undertook to smoke it out. The result was a cañon fire that had to be fought for hours by all the men within reach before it was mastered.

Again, campers and hunters, if they are new to the woods and have not been warned, are much too likely on the first chance and as a part of the fun to build a rousing camp-fire. Is not that what they have dreamed about? Do not all the outing books dwell on the comfort of such a fire after the day's tramp, and on the enjoyment of gathering around it for talk and story-telling? There is no harm in this if conditions are right and care is taken, but there is chance of vast harm otherwise.

I spent an exceedingly anxious time once when I had occasion to signal with a bonfire. My pile of fuel proved lighter and more tinderlike than I had anticipated, and the wind was heavy. The fire was hardly lighted before the wind caught it, and at once a stream of sparks and coals was flying up and back from the ridge where I stood, over the driest sort of country carpeted thick with pine needles and stubble. The signalling was successful, but the risk was more than I have ever cared to take again. The old camper, except in cases of special need, does no more than scoop out a narrow bed for a few coals with which to cook his rations. He is chary of a blaze.

(3) "Yellow-jackets" are a peculiar, indirect source of danger at certain seasons and on some reserves. These are small striped hornets, as abundant and as troublesome on occasion as flies. The hornet is not itself an incendiary. It is the Indians who are at fault. The larvæ are tidbits to the palate of an Indian. The process of securing them by smoking out the nests is easily accomplished, but with the risk and often with the result of a forest fire in payment. It was an encouraging sign of progress recently when a ranger came upon a group of squaws working hard to stop a fire of this nature that had nearly escaped them. Once they would have been unconcerned; but now fear of the consequences, immediate and remote, was upon them.

(4) Sparks from locomotives are another cause of fires. The law of some localities should be made the law everywhere, and should be vigorously enforced in all the reservations where locomotives pass or the