FIRE 169 



was on private land, for the most part, and there seems little doubt that it 

 was set deliberately, at the outset, by the hand of man. 



Three hundred miles away, by air line, floating particles of the burning 

 Everglades made fire-tower observation on the Choctawhatchee National 

 Forest difficult. On some days with a southeast wind, lookout towers were 

 all but useless. CCC boys were then sent out on patrol through the woods 

 to look for signs of fire, amid the smoke from the 'glades. 



The Choctawhatchee is the national forest mentioned in the opening 

 section of chapter 6 on camps; and the high fire hazard that obtains in 

 that part of western Florida, just before it greens up for summer, was also 

 noted. The ranger and his staff were determined to turn in a good fire 

 record. On quiet days the ranger slipped out and set test fires in safe places, 

 then hooked in a "portable" on the telephone line, to note if the towermen 

 were on their toes. One lookout man who went on serenely describing a long 

 dream he'd had the night before to another guard by telephone, with the smoke 

 coming up within 2 miles of his lookout, was relieved at once and replaced 

 by a man possessed of keener eyes, and not so dreamy. Everyone was alert 

 now, and the fire organization was functioning with smooth efficiency. 



Spring came late in 1939 to western Florida, and woods burners were 

 somewhat later than usual in firing the woods. Drought burned hard, but 

 even when fires began to be set outside the protective boundary the ranger, 

 by great vigilance, managed to hold down losses within the forest borders 

 to 3 acres. This was a fire started by a careless smoker, but all it took was 

 3 acres of some 309,000 acres, the forest area; the smallest loss, by far, ever 

 recorded on the Choctawhatchee, up to mid-March. 



Still it stayed dry, and that shroud of Everglade soot continued. Slowly 

 soot rained down on the baked ground, and coated it. Dogs and other 

 animals were dyed black to the hocks from the soot on that brittle cover. 

 Every day the risk and the tension heightened. The ranger, fire dispatcher, 

 and forest guards virtually gave up sleeping; 4 hours was more than they 

 got, most nights. They were gaunt-eyed from strain and worry; and the 

 guards in the towers drawled and swapped yarns no longer, but swore at 

 each other sharply on the 'phone line connecting their towers to the ranger 

 station and dispatcher. 



