500 



might happen; he had alerted a top- 

 flight fire-control overhead crew; he 

 also had asked his assistant, Loitved, 

 a man well trained in fire suppression, 

 to be on call at home over the week 

 end for emergency service. 



The supervisor scanned a map and 

 made his decisions. First, the new fires 

 that were spreading across the Red 

 River from Snag Flat should be han- 

 dled as a separate operation. (Ranger 

 Roberts himself and his men already 

 had been through a gruelling fight and 

 would do well if they completed the 

 job of controlling the still dangerous 

 main fire on their side of the river. 

 Certainly Roberts should not be called 

 on to handle both jobs.) The super- 

 visor dispatched the alerted overhead 

 crew with instructions to its fire boss, 

 Johnson, that he was in charge of the 

 new fire, and to call back from the Red 

 River ranger station for further in- 

 structions. 



Next, a message was sent to Roberts 

 advising him of the decision and agree- 

 ing with his plan for use of the road 

 and logging crew. Roberts was in- 

 structed that he was to do everything 

 possible until Johnson arrived to check 

 the new fire without risking further 

 break-over from Snag Flat. A prompt 

 report on the Snag Flat situation also 

 was requested. 



The forest supervisor decided fur- 

 ther to have Loitved make air recon- 

 naissance of both fires and then go into 

 Snag Flat to do whatever correlation 

 was needed between the two jobs. 



By then, the dispatcher had returned 

 from lunch, and Loitved, whom the 

 supervisor had called, arrived. The 

 three men got out aerial photographs 

 and type maps and hurriedly conferred 

 on a plan of action. 



It was plain that one back-country 

 fire camp out of reach of roads would 

 have to be established quickly by air- 

 plane. The best bet for the back-coun- 

 try job was to obtain the specially 

 trained 30-man crew of fire fighters, 

 known as the "hot-shot outfit," on the 

 adjacent Blackjack Forest, if they 

 could be spared. Those men had been 



Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



carefully chosen and trained for this 

 sort of work and, because of their skill, 

 could absorb reinforcements of a rea- 

 sonable number of green men. 



The forest dispatcher went into ac- 

 tion. He called the nearby airport and 

 obtained a plane equipped for cargo 

 dropping for immediate use. He also 

 instructed the forest warehouseman to 

 take an air-borne camp-and-tool out- 

 fit for 50 men, including water and 

 backfiring torches, to the airport. He 

 requested the Lake District ranger 

 headquarters to send three tanker out- 

 fits to Cedar Creek. He placed a call 

 for the regional dispatcher to ask that 

 the Blackjack hot-shot crew be sent to 

 Cedar Creek if it were available and 

 that he be advised promptly as to the 

 outcome of this request and the esti- 

 mated hour of arrival at Cedar Creek. 

 The Red River dispatcher was in- 

 structed to send four saddle horses to 

 Cedar Creek without delay. 



The supervisor and his assistant, 

 Loitved, knew that Cedar Creek itself 

 had been logged for cedar poles many 

 years earlier, that it was not accessible 

 by road, and that it was full of old 

 slash, which is good fuel for fire. They 

 also knew that on the east a road of 

 sorts ran 4 miles up Ant Creek, the 

 next stream up the river from Cedar 

 Creek, that Ant Creek was open timber 

 interspersed with glades, that the slope 

 was moderately steep, and that on the 

 west a road extended about 2 miles up 

 Fly Creek, the first stream down river 

 from Cedar Creek. A good trail ran 

 east from it to the divide at the head 

 of Cedar Creek. The east side of Fly 

 Creek, for the first 2 miles upstream, 

 was mostly covered by oak and brush, 

 which changed to timber at the first 

 large easterly branch of the stream. 

 The slope into the stream was steep 

 and cliffy. The west side of Fly Creek 

 and its headwaters above the trail sup- 

 ported a valuable stand of mature tim- 

 ber, as did Ant Creek. The photo- 

 graphs and maps showed that the 

 divide at the head of Cedar Creek was 

 sparsely timbered, steep, and rocky. 



One conclusion the men reached 



