EDITORIAL 



499 



blowing the smoldering sparks to a 

 raging ocean of fire that engulfed and 

 devoured everything in its path. The 

 Canadian Pacific Railroad is reported 

 to have lost several million ties, worth 

 more than a million dollars, 

 while the loss in standing tim- 

 ber, in crops destroyed, in the 

 destruction of buildings and 

 improvements, etc., ran the 

 total up to an estimate of 

 over $5,000,000. Care would 

 have prevented the fire ; care 

 in the first place would have 

 prevented its starting at all. 

 Hunters or campers, it is be- 

 lieved, left the embers of 

 their campfire uncovered and 

 unextinguished, and nobody 

 seems to have thought it 

 worth while to put out the 

 small fire that later developed 

 into a holocaust. 



The fires on the Ameri- 

 can side of the border, in 

 Montana, while not nearly so ex- 

 tensive or destructive, still were by 

 no means trifling blazes. These fires, 



and were finally controlled with a min- 

 imum of loss to the timber. The same 

 was true in the case of the Sierra Na- 

 tional Forest fires. Threatening at 

 first, they were fought hard and syste- 



Fire Sweeping an Arizona Mountaio 



however, were fought from the start. 

 Originating, it is believed, by reason 

 of dead trees being struck by light- 

 Tiing, the fires spread rapidly, but for- 

 est rangers and guards were rushed in, 

 the fires were fought systematically, 

 4 



Fire in an Arizona Canyon 



matically, and were put out within a 

 short time. 



Fires of this latter origin cannot be 

 guarded against. Lightning 

 rods for every tree in a forest 

 would be rather an expensive 

 proposition, but carelessness 

 on the part of those using a 

 forest can be prevented, to a 

 large degree National for- 

 ests are posted at frequent 

 intervals with conspicuous 

 signs warning against the 

 dangers of careless handling 

 of fires ; and fire-fighting is 

 a part of the "curriculum" of 

 forest officers. No blaze, no 

 matter how trifling in appear- 

 ance at the beginning, is ever 

 allowed to gain headway, it 

 it is possible to reach the spot 

 in time ; and if the blaze can- 

 not be kept from increasing 

 in volume, through inability 

 of the forest force to reach it in time, 

 ceaseless effort is exerted by every 

 available hand — often for thirty-six, or 

 even sixty, hours at a stretch — to ex- 

 tinguish it. The annals of the field 

 force of the Forest Service contain in- 



