FOREST FIRES 



141 



great forestry educational movement has done much to make 

 people more careful; still there is room for a great deal of im- 

 provement, and not until the danger of fire is largely eliminated 

 will land owners be induced to practice forestry extensively. 

 Up to the present time, forest fire risk is so great that no insur- 

 ance company in this country will insure standing timber. 1 

 Every landowner must furnish his own insurance by introducing 

 the preventive measures which are described under the different 

 forest regions. 



CAUSES OF FIRES. 



In the different sections of the United States, the causes of 

 forest fires differ according to the nature of the country. In 

 large, unbroken forest areas, like the Adirondacks and the Maine 

 woods, probably the largest percentage of fires has been set by 

 locomotives on the railroads crossing the region. Heavy freight 

 trains ascending steep grades are particularly apt to throw out 

 live cinders which readily start a fire in the dry leaves and grass 

 beside the right of way. On every railroad there are certain 

 places where there is special danger, as, for example, on sharp 

 curves between high banks, particularly if on a steep grade, where 

 the engine is so much tipped that its cinders fall on the bank 

 before they have had time to cool. No effective spark arrester 

 has thus far gained general use, but extensive and very satis- 

 factory experiments 2 have recently been conducted with new 

 inventions in this line by the Chicago and Northwestern Rail- 

 road at Chicago and by the American Spark Arrester Company of 

 Indianapolis at Purdue University. The best way of preventing 

 these railroad fires is to keep the right of way as clean as possible, 

 and during dry seasons to thoroughly patrol it. One man in a 

 hand car closely following every freight train during such seasons 

 can put out a great many incipient fires. In New York the State 

 Public Utilities Commission has required the railroads operating 



1 One company has incorporated for the purpose of insuring forest property, 

 and will start (1917) with headquarters at Boston, Mass., to write selected risks. 



2 See Report State Forester of Wisconsin, 1909-10, p. 119. 



