636 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the camps established in the field near 

 the bigger fires, reconnaissance to lo- 

 cate any other fires had to be made. 

 Fires were located, but owing to the 

 impossibility of getting a pack train and 

 supplies into them without trails, they 

 had in some cases to be left burning. 



FATAL DELAYS 



With adequate patrol, trails, and tele- 

 phone communication, these fires ought 

 to have been discovered and somebody 

 been on the ground within 5 to 8 hours 

 after the first smoke was seen ; instead, 

 it actually took from one to five days. 

 If help was needed after the fire was 

 reached, the Forest Guard or Ranger 

 would have, without trails or telephone 

 lines, a trip of from 30 to 60 miles on 

 foot to get it. This would consume 

 from I to 3 days. If necessary to re- 

 turn with a bunch of men, imagine 

 crawling through the brush with packs 

 on your backs to get to a fire, or else 

 cutting out miles of windfall and brush. 



Think of the time consumed ! Fire 

 has the peculiar faculty of showing no 

 disposition to wait. Perhaps on ac- 

 count of this delay a fire which in the 

 first place covered only a few acres has 

 in the absence of any restraining influ- 

 ence covered one or two thousand 

 acres, or perhaps fifty thousand acres. 

 Don't think this improbable ; visit some 

 of the great areas of charred stumps 

 and snags, where once stood timber 

 worth on the stump from $2.00 to $4.50 

 per thousand board feet. These were 

 some of the difficulties encountered in 

 the dry season of 1910 



THREE THOUSAND FIRES PUT OUT 



By the middle of August, over three 

 thousand small fires had been put out 

 by the patrolmen and over ninety large 

 fires brought under control by organ- 

 ized crews of from twenty-five to one 

 hundred and fifty men. Fires once 

 brought under control were repeatedly 

 fanned into new life by high winds, and 



racing up into the crowns of the trees, 

 jumped across the trenches which re- 

 strained them. 



The weary fighters had to drop back 

 and throw up a second or third or even 

 fourth line of defense. New fires were 

 starting every day, and the dense smoke 

 made it extremely difficult to locate 

 them, except when close to roads or 

 railroad rights of way. With the force 

 of men in the field, however, assisted 

 efficiently by ten companies of Federal 

 troops, and the organized pack-train 

 system of transportation, most of the 

 fires were well in hand on Saturday, 

 August 20. 



WHEN THE HURRICANE CAME 



On the afternoon of that day a hurri- 

 cane, strong enough in many localities 

 to uproot whole hillsides of timber and 

 force men out of their saddles, swept 

 over the Forests adjoining the Mon- 

 tana-Idaho state line. The gale con- 

 tinued for fully twenty-four hours and 

 fanned every smouldering fire in its 

 path into uncontrollable fury. They 

 flamed up into the crowns of the trees 

 and spread through the adjoining tim- 

 ber, nuich of which was uprooted be- 

 fore the fires reached it, with incredible 

 rapidity. 



The roar of these fires was heard for 

 miles and was likened by some of the 

 Rangers in their path to the noise of a 

 thousand freight trains crossing simul- 

 taneously as many steel trestles. At 

 many points these fires jumped rivers a 

 quarter or half a mile wide, and in sev- 

 eral instances leaped across canyons a 

 mile or more in width, from ridge to 

 ridge, leaving solid strips of green tim- 

 ber untouched. 



Cinders, ashes, and burning embers 

 were carried many miles. The nearest 

 fire to Missoula, Montana, was about 12 

 miles, -yet cinders as large as robins' 

 eggs fell in the streets, and the clouds 

 of smoke and ashes were so thick that 

 the electric lights were lit at 3 o'clock 

 in the afternoon. The sun shining 

 through these clouds gave a vivid, lurid 

 glare as of a great conflagration. For 

 many days it shone only as a great 

 round blood-red disk. 



