USE OF TELEPHONE LINES IN FIGHTING FIRES 471 



a field glass from some lookout point, to detect the first faint column of 

 smoke that means the beginning of a forest fire. 



With so much territory to cover, it is a physical impossibility to have 

 all parts of the district under his supervision at all hours of the day. There 

 will come a time when several fires will start at once. The causes are various ; 

 sometimes they are set by lightning from the electrical storms that are 

 common in mountainous country; more often they are due to carelessness of 

 campers or tourists; occasionally they are started wantonly by some person 

 who objects to the arm of the law, as represented by the Forest Ranger, 

 reaching back into the wild places; again, it may be that an unextinguished 

 match, or a spark from a pipe or cigarette is dropped in the dry humus, as 

 the hunter or prospector wanders in places remote from the generally travelled 

 trails. The spark ignites the slow burning duff which smolders, perhaps for 

 days, unseen, the thin smoke being lost in the blue of the spruce tops above 

 it; slowly it burns its way to the resinous roots or mossy trunk of some 

 conifer; the mountain breeze fans it to a flame; it leaps up and seizes upon 

 the dry twigs and the pitch laden foliage; the tree bursts into a pillar of 

 flame and the destruction of the growth of centuries begins. Any of these 

 events may happen any day during the long drouth of summer. When they 

 do occur, the ranger needs help and needs it quickly, to save the heritage 

 he has been set to guard. 



If he has a telephone, the call for help will be in at headquarters within 

 an hour, and in another the ranger will be at the fire planning his battle and 

 doing all he can to check the flames. At headquarters the organization that 

 has been perfected for just such emergencies is set to work ; by telephone the 

 nearest rangers are sent to his aid ; from the lists that have been prepared 

 and kept on file of the available men and horses that can be hired at the 

 nearest settlement, crews and supply trains are organized within a few hours 

 and sent in, if additional help is needed. 



With no telephone in his district the ranger must ride to the nearest 

 settlement where he gathers such help and supplies as possible, with the least 

 loss of time and returns to the fire after sending a messenger on to head- 

 quarters with the news. But, in the meantime, hours have been lost that may 

 mean thousands to the Nation. I have seen seven million feet of timber burn 

 in one afternoon, because a privately owned telephone line on the national 

 forest was out of repair in just such an emergency as has been described. 

 Several hours were lost in getting a messenger out to the nearest ranger and 

 the news to headquarters; a crew was organized and sent in without loss of 

 time, but arrived four hours after the fire had broken out of control of the 

 ranger and the few men he had gathered. In this short time it swept the 

 whole mountain side clean. The supervisor bought that telephone line before 

 another season opened. 



While the principal reason for building these lines is for fire protection, 

 they pay for themselves in other ways by facilitating the business and adminis- 

 tration of the forest. Hardly a week passes but the ranger finds it necessary 

 to communicate with his supervisor upon some matter of business. Mail 

 routes are scarce in these remote districts. To get to headquarters he may 

 have to ride one hundred miles, or even more. This means several days of labor 

 lost, to say nothing of the risk of leaving the district without any patrol. 

 With a telephone the matter can be settled in fifteen minutes and the ranger 

 does not leave his work. 



During the summer months the forests are used to pasture thousands of 

 head of sheep, cattle, and horses, that are trailed for scores of miles to these 

 summer pastiires. The telephone is a boon to the owner in enabling him to 

 keep in touch with his foremen and outfit. 



