46 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Sometimes the front of the fire is so fierce that it is impossible to meet it 

 directly. One method under such circumstances is to direct the course of the 

 fire. The attack is made on the sides near the front, separating the forward 

 portion of the fire from the main wings. A part of the crew attacks the for- 

 ward part and others run down and extinguish the wings. The front of the 

 fire, attacked from the sides, is forced gradually and constantly into a nar- 

 rower path. Usually the front can be directed toward some cleared space, 

 road, pond, stream, swamp, or fire line, when it will be checked enough to 

 admit of a direct front attack. Sometimes by this plan the front may be rap- 

 idly narrowed by working from the sides, until it is at last entirely extin- 

 guished. The plan of giving direction to the course of the fire has often been 

 successfully carried out when the fighting crew is too small for a direct attack. 



Methods of Fighting Ground Fires. 



Ground fires, burning in the deep layer of organic matter, are exceedingly 

 diflScult to extinguish. If the layer of vegetable matter is not very deep, it is 

 sometimes possible to put out the fiames by water or sand. If the layer is 

 deep, trenching is the only practical method of stopping the progress of the 

 fire. In using this method of fighting ground fires, one judges the rapidity 

 with which the fire is burning and then, at a proper distance away, digs a 

 trench through the vegetable layer down to the mineral soil, using axes, mat- 

 tocks, and shovels, as the particular case may require. Such a trench, which 

 has a width at the bottom of one foot, will enable the fighters to stop an or- 

 dinary ground fire, especially if the work can be supplemented by the use of 

 water or sand at the trench. 



Methods of Fighting Crovm Fires. 



Crown fires are always accompanied by surface fires. Crown fires stop 

 when there are no longer inflammable crowns through which the fire will run, 

 or when there is no longer any material on the ground to carry the surface 

 fire. An ordinary crown fire will jump a wide fire line, and many fires have 

 been known to cross wide rivers, almost without check. In the mountains, a 

 crown fire running up a slope is almost impossible to check. 



Back Firing. 



On level ground it is possible to stop crown fires by back firing, when 

 the conditions are such as to make back firing possible at all. Thus in the 

 pine forests of the Atlantic Coast crown fires are frequently checked by back 

 firing. The back fire burns off the surface material, and thus in itself acts as 

 a check to the crown fire, and, if the area burned by the back fire is large 

 enough, will stop it in this way. At other times, when the back fire has been 

 successfully started and is well under way, eating back against the wind, it is 

 caught by the hot volume of air generated by the heat of the crown fire. The 

 flames are then turned quickly toward the crown fire, and the meeting of the 

 two lines of flame stops the advance of the fire. 



When fires gain such headway that it is impossible to stop them by direct 

 attack, no matter how numerous and efficient the crew or complete the equip- 

 ment for fighting, back firing becomes the only means of stopping the fire. It 

 should, however, be used only when it is absolutely necessary. One of the 

 commonest mistakes in fighting fires is to overestimate the rapidity of the 

 fire and the difficulty of putting it out. A forest fire is always a frightening 

 spectacle, particularly if it is sweeping in the direction of one's own property. 

 Men often become excited and start back fires when it is entirely unnecessary. 

 Back firing necessarily involves deliberately burning over property. When 



