20 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



Two days after all the men available were out trying to prevent this fire from burning 

 the railway trestles, even the men from the mines having to be turned over to this task. 

 A number of fires are raised in this way. 



DELIBERATE FIRING. 



Fire is wholly used for clearing land for buildings, ranches, railway and other 

 rights of way, and these fires are often set at the time when the least possible amount 

 of labour will be entailed that is to say, right through the dry season. Were it ne- 

 cessary I could give instances of fires started in this way down to the end of last 

 season, but since so many companies and individuals have sinned in this manner, 

 there is no need to particularize. Such fires are not primarily intended to destroy 

 large areas of forest, (though it seems to be a matter 'of little concern if they do, but I 

 am convinced that fires are started by individuals with the express purpose of clear- 

 ing the timber off large areas in order to facilitate prospecting. This mode of defor- 

 estation is quite generally approved of by those interested in the discovery of minerals. 

 I have learned this from widespread intercourse with such individuals, who are con- 

 vinced that the end justifies the means. Last summer when we first observed the 

 smoke of forest fires, a man remarked to me that he knew where the first fire would be, 

 and sure enough that was one of the first. It is needless to say it was a locality where 

 there was reason to believe good prospects could be located. Of the score or more fires 

 which came under my notice last summer, I don't suppose that more than a couplte 

 were located where I did not know that it was desired to have the ground laid bare. 

 When the general opinion is not hostile to such action, it must be regarded as more 

 than a coincidence that the fires should clear just the ground that is supposed to be 

 mineralized. I do not mean to say that in every case the fires weire delibierately set, 

 but such views tend to carelessness and prevent whole-hearted efforts at extinction. 



When a fire is burning in the vicinity, back-fires are often set with the alleged 

 purpose of checking the fire in a particular direction. It may happen that these back- 

 fires make desired clearings, and also that they become more destructive than the 

 original fire. It is not alone the lumbering industry that suffers. Many of the low- 

 grade mines, and in British Columbia these will probably out-number the high-grade, 

 can only be worked if costs are low, and timber is one of the important items of cost. 

 A forest of timber goes into a large mine. If the timber cannot be obtained cheaply, 

 that is, near the mine, it might be that the mine could not be worked. It is where 

 mines are or will be that men are, and it is where men are that the bulk of the fires 

 are; so that the destruction of timber by fires is a serious matter for the mining in- 

 dustry. The damage to property by these fires is also great. The prospectors lose their 

 cabins and prospecting outfits to them a very serious matter. Mines lose their build- 

 ings, surface plants and tramways, and until they can be replaced production is at a 

 standstill. Whole towns are threatened and sometimes destroyed, and life itself is 

 endangered. Thus the losses occasioned by fires affect directly and indirectly all in- 

 dustries and all 'classes of people. Yet the worst obstacle in curtailing this destruction 

 is the inertia of an apathetic public. In whatever steps that may be taken to lessen 

 this fire evil, the education of the public to the seriousness of the question should 

 receive a foremost place. One of the quickest ways of doing this, it seems to me, 

 would be to make the laws regarding fires more stringent, and to see that they are 

 rigidly enforced. To set a fire deliberately or through wanton carelessness should be 

 a penitentiary offence, just as any other form of wilful fire-raising. To burn down a v 

 public building in cjrder to let) more sunlight into ;your back garden would be arson, 

 but it would be quite as defensible and probably as innocuous an act to raise a forest 

 fire to aid your prospecting. It is true that notices regarding forest fires and penalties 

 for causing them are .pretty generally posted throughout the fire districts, but these 

 laws are not enforced v I have seen a number of cases in which the responsibility for 

 the fires could be placed, but I do not know of any one having been prosecuted in con- 

 nection therewith. 



