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common for whole coveys of bewil- 

 dered quail to turn back into fires from 

 which they have just fled, then drop 

 in the waves of heat and gas before be- 

 ing touched by the flames. Fire fight- 

 ers tell of rabbits that have been 

 blinded and of deer with feet so badly 

 burned in hot ashes that they were easy 

 prey for varmints. 



There are many more small wildfires 

 than big ones. Many people think 

 small fires do no damage, but they are 

 mistaken. Even small wildfires gener- 

 ally set in motion events that are often 

 more far reaching and of greater im- 

 portance than the immediate and di- 

 rect damage done by their flames. 



One such event was the destructive 

 flood that occurred in Salt Lake City 

 on August 19, 1945. 



George W. Graddock, of the Inter- 

 mountain Forest and Range Experi- 

 ment Station, says this flood came dur- 

 ing the night. From a city cemetery, he 

 adds, it washed out more than 300 

 tombstones and many bodies. It spread 

 debris, silt, gravel, and mud over 

 streets and sidewalks. It clogged storm 

 sewers, invaded garages and basements, 

 cracked foundations, soaked food and 

 furniture. 



It was a man-caused wildfire that 

 pulled the trigger on that flood. It 

 burned only about 600 acres in grass- 

 and-brush-covered foothill drainages 

 north of the city. It was put out 11 

 months before the flood came. But by 

 destroying the cover and impairing 

 the power of the watershed to retain 

 moisture, Craddock believes, it was 

 definitely responsible for damage esti- 

 mated at $347,000. 



Studies by M. W. Talbot and G. J. 

 Kraebel, of the California Forest and 

 Range Experiment Station, reveal that 

 water furnished by brush- and forest- 

 covered mountains is essential in irri- 

 gating more than a million acres of 

 high-value croplands in southern Cali- 

 fornia, and in meeting domestic and 

 industrial needs of some 4 million per- 

 sons. 



With about 50 percent of the popu- 

 lation of the State, they say, southern 



California has only 2 percent of the 

 water supply in California. Despite 

 this shortage, however, they point out 

 that it has serious flood problems. 

 Kraebel recently said that many reser- 

 voirs in the south coastal basin of Cali- 

 fornia have lost approximately a fourth 

 of their capacity because of siltation, 

 and some of them have been com- 

 pletely filled with debris. Because of 

 this situation, he added, flood-control 

 agencies that operate in Los Angeles 

 County have already spent upwards of 

 200 million dollars for flood-control 

 works and estimate that 100 million 

 dollars more is necessary. 



These works are designed to cope 

 with heavy storm run-off that is greatly 

 accelerated when wildfires burn steep 

 brush-covered slopes. 



The need for works of this nature 

 and for more help in stopping man- 

 caused wildfires before they can get 

 started is illustrated by what has hap- 

 pened in many places at different times. 

 Typical on a small scale is the after- 

 math of the Prankish Canyon wildfire 

 of September 16, 1935. 



Only 225 acres were burned in that 

 canyon then, but foresters believed 

 trouble would come to the San Antonio 

 section, near the city of Upland. So 

 the burn was sowed with wild mustard. 

 The possible courses of floods were 

 traced by Clark H. Gleason, Jr., who 

 made a survey of potential flood haz- 

 ards. Warnings were issued. When 

 those went unheeded, the Forest Serv- 

 ice built a small emergency basin to 

 catch at least some of the expected 

 debris. 



Winter rains started before the mus- 

 tard cover crop had grown enough to 

 retard much run-off. The rains were 

 ordinary in both amount and intensity, 

 but they rolled down Frankish Canyon 

 in three mud-and-boulder-laden floods. 

 The floods wrecked homes, garages, 

 pipelines, lawns, and trees. Neil F. 

 Meadowcroft and Gleason estimated 

 damage caused by this fire-induced 

 flood at 47 thousand dollars, and ex- 

 pressed the opinion that it would have 

 been much greater had it not been for 



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