MEANS OF DEFENSE. 83 



1894. While the area burned over was less than in 

 some other great fires, the loss of life and property was 

 very heavy. Hinckley and six other towns were de- 

 stroyed, about 500 lives were lost, more than 2,000 per- 

 sons were left destitute, and the estimated loss in prop- 

 erty of various kinds was $25,000,000. Except for the 

 heroic conduct of locomotive engineers and other rail- 

 road men the loss of life would have been far greater. 

 This fire was all the more deplorable, because it was 

 wholly unnecessary. For many days before the high 

 wind came and drove it into uncontrollable fury, it was 

 burning slowly close to the town of Hinckley, and 

 could have been put out. 



MEANS OF DEFENSE. 



The means of fighting forest fires are not everywhere 

 the same, for they burn in many different ways; but 

 in every case the best time to fight a fire is at the begin- 

 ning, before it has had time to spread. A delay of even 

 a very few minutes may permit a fire that at first could 

 easily have been extinguished to gather headway and 

 get altogether beyond control. 



When there is but a thin covering of leaves and other 

 waste on the ground a fire usually can not burn very 

 hotly or move with much speed. The fires in most 

 hardwood forests are of this kind. They seldom kill 

 large trees, but they destroy seedlings and saplings 

 and kill the bark of older trees in places near the 

 ground. The hollows at the foot of old Chestnuts and 

 other large trees are often the results of these fires, 

 which occur again and again, and so enlarge the wounds 

 instead of allowing them to heal. (See PI. XLII.) 

 Moderate fires also occur in dense coniferous forests 



