ORIGIN OF FIRES. 71 



cleared right of way always support large quantities of herbage in the 

 shape of annual and perennial plants. In late summer all this is like a 

 mass of tinder, ready to burst into flame upon the application of a spark. 

 The railroads themselves often suffer severely from the lire, kindled 

 through their own carelessness or negligence, I badges are burned, 

 ties and wood destroyed; still, little effort is put forth to check the evil." 



Timber cutters come next as factors in the destructive processes. If 

 they do not absolutely kindle as many tires as do those we have already 

 noticed, they certainly contribute more toward the effective preparation 

 of the forests for the coming conflagrations than do the others. The 

 forests are filled by them with litter from the cut trees, the upper por- 

 tions of the trunk and the crown, which are never utilized; broken and 

 splintered trees of all ages and sixes, destroyed by the careless felling 

 of the trees that were used; large trees cut down and sawed into logs, 

 but rejected for various reasons; in short, all the debris a large dense 

 forest will furnish. Such a mass of inflammable substances gives an 

 excellent opportunity for a hot, destructive fire, and it is sure to come 

 sooner or later. Occasionally tires are set to cover up plunderings of 

 trespassers upon the public timber, and they are common enough in all 

 localities where large quantities of lumber are cut from public lands. 



Settlers upon agricultural lands within the forest areas do their share 

 toward needlessly destroying the timber. We will exclude all tires 

 set for the purpose of clearing the land to render it tillable. It never 

 stops here, however, except by accident. If the conflagration spreads 

 from the clearing to the neighboring forest, no one tries to stop it or 

 cares in the least how far it extends so long as it does not endanger the 

 individual's property. The greatest danger from this cause lies in the 

 sections where the settlers endeavor to depend upon stock raising for 

 their support. Their summer range here is the forest, where the grass 

 growth, at least in the White Pine Zone, is exceedingly scanty. By 

 burning the forest they reason that a larger supply of grass will be 

 obtained. This is true, at least partially. Many fires are started with 

 this object in view. 



Camping parties often carelessly neglect to extinguish their tires in 

 breaking camp. There is a local law applicable to this in the Cieux 

 d'Alenes, which, however, nobody ever dreams of enforcing. 



Maliciousness adds in a slight degree to the causes of forest fires. 

 Instances are known where parties have fired the timber out of morbid 

 curiosity to see it burn and to see the flames run to the top of the tail, 

 lichen-draped trees. 



BURNED AREAS. 



The forests in the Gceur d'Alenes are honeycombed with burns in all 

 directions and of all sizes. It is impossible to travel anywhere without 

 meeting with these dead and blackened remnants of what was once a 

 vigorously growing forest. The saw and the ax have been as nothing 

 compared with the fires, f do not hesitate to assert that for every 



