During the last eighteen years we have had but one serious fire in 

 the summer, that of 1899, which was due to the extraordinary heat 

 and prolonged drought in August and September of that year. The 

 x fires at that time occurred mostly on open, waste lands; and it 

 was noticed that in many places their progress was arrested when 

 they reached a body of green timber. But in April and May of 

 every year, when the trees and undergrowth are bare, the mass of 

 dead leaves, stumps, and fallen tree trunks are exposed to the sun 

 and drying action of the wind, rendering them highly inflammable 

 and ready to burst into flames wherever a spark may fall or a camp 

 fire be left carelessly burning. 



No rain, except slight local showers, fell in the Adirondack region 

 from April 4th to June nth. The month of May was the dryest in 

 77 years since 1826. In Albany the rainfall was only .15 of an 

 inch, and it was still less in Northern New York. Combined with 

 the lack of rain there was an unusually high temperature, the month 

 of May showing an accumulated excess above the normal of 89 de- 

 grees. On May 6th and I9th the temperature at Saranac Lake was 

 in the eighties. On the 2/th the mercury stood at 85 degrees, with 

 a strong south wind blowing; and on June 6th and 7th it reached 

 over 90 degrees in the shade. 



In the early spring this year, soon after the ground was free from 

 snow, several small fires occurred ; but, as usual in other years, these 

 were quickly extinguished by the firewardens and their men before 

 the flames had attained any headway or done any damage. In the 

 latter part of April forest fires broke out with alarming frequency 

 along the lines of the New York Central, the Chateaugay, the New 

 York and Ottawa, and the Saranac and Lake Placid railroads. 



At first the firewardens extinguished these railroad fires wherever 

 they appeared; but the locomotives continued to throw sparks and 



