868 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



adequately provide against both the occurrence and spread of fire in 

 and adjacent to timber and logged-off land. 



The article describes concisely, yet with sufficient detail to give a 

 well-rounded idea of the situation and circumstances even to the reader 

 who was previously entirely unfamiliar with them, the extent and char- 

 acter of both the region afifected and the loss sufifered, including human 

 life, live stock, farm and city property, and public improvements. 

 Many, too, are the instances of human interest cited — of cool, deliber- 

 ate, and clear-headed leadership and personal abnegation and self- 

 sacrifice unsurpassed by any reported from the field of battle ; of the 

 tragedy and horror of it all and of the kindliness and big-heartedness, 

 the outpouring of men and money to aid and care for the stricken and 

 provide shelter and a new start in life for those who had lost their 

 home and their all. 



The article is, however, chiefly noteworthy for its clear exposition 

 of the relationship between natural causes, human carelessness, and 

 criminal public negligence and responsibility for the magnitude and 

 seriousness of the disaster. It shows convincingly to any fair-minded 

 and unbiased person that what occurred was entirely preventable and 

 unnecessary. Without minimizing the unusual dryness and the indi- 

 cations for the prevalence that day of fresh or moderately strong winds, 

 the article puts the blame squarely on the existence of numerous con- 

 trollable but neglected small fires, which in coming together created the 

 gale and the resulting catastrophe. 



In that particular it is notably dififerent from the usual run of the 

 accounts of this disaster. To be sure, one of the earliest unofficial 

 accounts hinted that there were no general and unusual atmospheric 

 disturbances to which to attribute the tremendous rush and roar with 

 which the fires spread, and that the gale was a fire-generated one. The 

 official version, emanating from the State Forester's office, however, 

 which version is now chiefly quoted, gave the impression of being 

 willing to "pass the buck" to nature. While it does not contradict the 

 earlier version, in so many words, it does do so by inference, when it 

 speaks of the numerous small fires fanned by a terrific gale into a 

 raging conflagration, thus leaving one to infer that the gale was pre- 

 existent. 



Why this turn about when a much stronger case could have been 

 made for the necessary State appropriation to provide adequate facili- 

 ties to absolutely prevent or controV small fires is not readily discerni- 

 ble. Legislators may be pardoned if they do not evince an overzealous 

 interest in making large appropriations year after year to provide a 



