TREE STUDY AND CIVIC FORESTRY 



63 



One evening last September when the men had quit work and were all 

 in camp or on the way, a patrolman blew the fire signal at a " donkey " 

 about sixty rods from camp and within three minutes fifty men were at 

 work. In half an hour there were a hundred, and in fifteen minutes 

 more, a hundred and fifty. Even with this prompt action it took all 

 night and all the next day to extinguish the fire. Now what I should 

 like to know is how to keep 

 a fire from working you 

 forty hours even when you 

 see it start and can get your 

 crew on the ground at once. 

 It was a dry slashing and a 

 cigarette. How stop the 

 cigarette ? Proceedings 

 of Forest-Fire Conference, 

 Seattle, 1912, p. 19 



This is the crucial, 

 vital point in civic co- 

 operation, to have every 

 one, young or old, na- 

 tive or foreign-born, 

 rich or poor, thoroughly 

 careful about these lit- 

 tle sparks that start the 

 big fires. 



For outdoor labora- 

 tory work organize the 

 class so as to utilize all 

 local brush burnings 

 and actual forest fires. Make practical demonstrations of put- 

 ting out camp fires by the use of water and earth. Teach the 

 factors that go to make up a safe, model camp fire proximity 

 to water or moist earth, use of stones and rocks to prevent 

 spreading, and distance from dry stumps, logs, peat, or leaf 

 mold. Finally organize a survey for danger spots and try 

 to have these attended to before the danger season. 



FIG. 32. Forest-fire lookout, Croydon Moun- 

 tain, New Hampshire 

 Photograph by Charles I. Rice 



