708 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



bonds, however, there is but one fire season lasting 

 from early spring until late fall. The green timber in 

 the summer may be fairly safe from fire, but the 

 deeply drained swamps and muskegs will burn when- 

 ever ignited. Once afire, they will keep on burning 

 unless thoroughly extinguished; here in an open area, 

 there under a spruce or tamarack forest, now consum- 

 ing only the mossy, surface peat, again perhaps under 

 the ditch banks and not infrequently eating deeply into 

 the over drained peat lands. Great burned holes and 

 irregular shaped patches and winding caverns may 

 replace what a week or two before was a splendid 

 growth of timber or a huge meadow where a whole 

 community cut hay. 



No Rest For The Rangers 



Only the men of the State Forest Service and the 

 settlers affected, know in full what this long fire sea- 

 son means. The strain, the uncertainty, the worry, 

 the frantic calls for help hundreds and hundreds of 

 them in the course of a season; and most disturbing 

 of all, a knowledge and appreciation of the country 

 from which these calls come, and the dread of what, 

 under certain conditions, might really happen. We 

 know how fires act, what they can do, what they have 

 done. Recall the tragedies of Hinckley, of Chisholm, 

 of Baudette and the more recent ones of Moose Lake 

 and Cloquet. 



No time is lost when fire calls come in. Sometimes 

 they come in quick succession, from one place the re- 



port of a grass fire sweeping toward a settlement, 

 from another word that a peat fire is spreading over a 

 large bog and threatening ruin to many farms. Still 

 other messages tell of brush and woodland fires spring- 

 ing up in this township and that one, and over on 

 Boulder Lake some cottages are in danger. Sometimes 

 twenty calls reach a ranger's office in a single day. 

 When the drouth is unbroken, evaporation high, the 

 hygrometer shows low humidity and the weather re- 

 port mentions wind, there is no rest, no sleep, for the 

 ranger and his men. 



Then, the fire plan for the district is a boon. The 

 best emergency men are picked up and put in charge 

 of the various fire crews so that the regular patrolmen 

 can be used in a larger way on still other fires. From 

 the plan also the best sources of equipment and sup- 

 plies are ascertained. Rumors of the fires reach the 

 press and newspapers begin calling up. Forest officers 

 are trained to be conservative in their statements, but 

 wild stories are almost sure to appear from some 

 source. Then persons having relatives in the fire dis- 

 tricts, or within fifty miles of the fires for that matter, 

 become worried and begin wiring the Forester and the 

 rangers. Tourists become alarmed and move out and 

 a terrible suspense hangs over the whole state for 

 fear a catastrophe is impending. 



How Drainage Increased the Hazard 



The greatest fire hazard of all came with the de- 

 mand for drainage ditches. Starting in a small way a 



n^S-ri ^?,^'TSm^^,"^*' WORK OF TRENCHING AHEAD OF A FOREST FIRE IN THE NORTH WOODS IN THE 



DAIIIjIS AOAINST AN ONCOMING FIRE. ONLY THE MEN OF THE STATE FOREST SERVICE, AND THE SETTLERS 



AFFKCTBD. KNOW WHAT THE STRAIN OF THE LONG FIRE SEASON REALLY MEANS 



