504 



Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



The Swanson crew arrived at 5 

 o'clock. They were fed, and started for 

 the lines about an hour later. Ten were 

 sent to Armstrong for the hot-spotting 

 job on Swamp Flat Ridge; the others 

 were assigned to Ellsworth, who sent 15 

 men and a bulldozer up the Fly Greek 

 road to start the trail-builder line on 

 Trail Ridge. Another foreman and 10 

 men of his crew were scheduled for 

 the job of building a line by hand from 

 the end of the tractor-dozer-built line 

 on Trail Ridge to the head of Cedar 

 Creek. Ellsworth went along with these 

 two crews to distribute them properly 

 over the jobs. 



Two saw gangs were immediately 

 put across the river to Snag Flat. 



The laborers from Cedarville ar- 

 rived about 7. Twenty of them were 

 assigned to Armstrong to assist in his 

 backfiring; 20 were assigned to Ells- 

 worth to start the backfiring job on 

 Fly Creek; the other 10 were held in 

 camp to augment the hot-shot crew, 

 since a radio message from Freeman 

 indicated that the hot-spotting job at 

 the head of the creek would be heavier 

 than expected. 



Johnson had brought two good fire- 

 crew bosses with him, Ellsworth and 

 Armstrong. When Johnson had ar- 

 rived at Cedar Creek, he had not an- 

 ticipated additional overhead of the 

 caliber of Freeman and had planned 

 to handle the situation by dividing the 

 total fire perimeter into two segments, 

 with Ellsworth and Armstrong each in 

 charge of a segment. The segments 

 would be long and difficult to super- 

 vise. News of Freeman's availability 

 therefore was most welcome. Johnson 

 now planned to use three segments and 

 give Freeman the entire hot-spotting 

 and line-holding job from the ends of 

 the tractor lines on Trail Ridge and 

 Swamp Flat Ridge (which are indi- 

 cated by the symbol X on the map) . 

 This would make three well-balanced 

 sections and give closer supervision and 

 better execution all along the line. 



At 7 : 45 a radio message from one of 

 Freeman's scouts reported that the 

 Cedar Divide camp had been dropped 



all right and that all cargoes were lo- 

 cated and retrievable more welcome 

 information. The fire boss' base for ac- 

 tion was now sure. The message also 

 advised that there were many small 

 spot fires, that water would be essen- 

 tial for mopping these up, and that a 

 plentiful supply should be dropped at 

 camp early next morning. 



Because the odds were that the area 

 would be wholly befogged by dead 

 smoke in the morning and that there- 

 fore operation of a plane would be im- 

 possible, Johnson placed an order for 

 a pack train from the White resort to 

 be at the road end on Fly Creek by 

 morning, equipped with a full comple- 

 ment of water-carrying equipment, 

 with instructions to load water at Fly 

 Creek and proceed to the Cedar Di- 

 vide camp. 



Another message to Johnson said 

 that only 75 men would arrive for the 

 morning shift ; no more were available. 



Loitved arrived about 8: 15 from a 

 check-up at the Snag Flat camp. The 

 assistant forest supervisor and Johnson 

 made a hurried trip over the Fly Creek 

 and Ant Creek lines to check progress 

 and get facts upon which to base morn- 

 ing plans. They found that progress 

 was satisfactory. The Ant Creek-Red 

 River road line was completed and all 

 inflammable material close to the line 

 had been disposed of. The bulldozer 

 had been moved ahead and was now 

 being held in reserve in the event that 

 spot fires might start from the back- 

 firing operations. Backfiring was going 

 to slow down soon because of increas- 

 ing humidity, but the flame-throwers 

 would be most useful with their in- 

 tense heat, they could partly overcome 

 the effect of increasing dampness of 

 night and safely destroy inflammable 

 material; such an operation would be 

 dangerous in the heat of the next day. 



Loitved and Johnson met Arm- 

 strong at Swamp Flat. Armstrong, the 

 fire-crew boss who had been assigned 

 to the Ant Creek section, had found 

 conditions better than expected on 

 Swamp Flat Ridge and had been able 

 to establish control lines directly at the 



