The Conference With the Railroads 



IN view of the vast territory traversed by the railroads and 

 the great number of fires originating along their lines, 

 the State Forester issued invitations to those lines oper- 

 ating in the forest regions in the northern and central por- 

 tions of the state to meet with him in a conference in Brain- 

 erd, February 10th, to discuss ways and means for the pre- 

 vention of these fires. There was a most hearty response. 

 Some forty odd men, some of them high officials, representing 

 nearly all the roads which touch the forest area, were pres- 

 ent and showed themselves enthusiastically in favor of co- 

 operation or any action which would tend to reduce the risk. 



It was shown very clearly that the interests of the rail- 

 roads lay along three distinct lines. The chief of these is 

 the enormous cost of the damage suits brought against the 

 railroads in dangerous seasons for fires along the right of 

 way, some of them justly chargeable to the sparks thrown 

 out by the locomotives, others started by the settlers clearing 

 land or from some other cause, and charged to the railroad, 

 but all of them amounting to millions of dollars in the aggre- 

 gate. A big expense for preventitive measures is justifiable 

 as an insurance charge against these enormous losses. In 

 the next place the direct losses to the companies in the de- 

 struction of their own property, chiefly ties, trestles and 

 buildings (with an occasional loss in rolling stock) is con- 

 siderable in a bad season. Lastly, probably the largest loss 

 but not in the past given sufficient attention by the roads, 

 there is the destruction of traffic in the form of forest prod- 

 ucts, grain and hay, which would have made thousands of 

 car-loads of freight in the future. The loss from this source 

 mounts into the millions. 



The railroads did not deny that a large number of fires 

 though by no means all of those with which they were cred- 

 ited were set by sparks from the locomotives, but on the 

 other hand they claimed credit for doing everything in their 



