2lS 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



hottest work I was ever detailed on, and 

 may God have pity on the brave men who 

 are" risking a terrible death to save the 

 mountains and preserve the watershed." 

 So fast did this fire advance in the can- 

 yons and up the mountain sides that many 

 people were caught and forced to run for 

 their lives. Although nobody seems to 

 have been hurt, several had narrow es- 



rangers, skilled in the work of dealing 

 with fire, and familiar with the position of 

 every cliff and opening in the woods, 

 would have found great difficulty in get- 

 ting to points of vantage with prompt- 

 ness ; but when the rangers were at most 

 fourteen in number, and the fire fighters 

 were many of them green men, delays 

 were necessarily multiplied and increased. 



By courtesy of the Western Graphic. 



In the foreground is an unburnt ridge and in the distance is the devastated east side of the Big 

 Santa Anita Canyon. 



capes, and got off only after having hair 

 or beard singed and clothing burned. 



When one considers that this is the dry 

 season in California, and what the other 

 conditions were under which the fire had to 

 be fought, the wonder is not that it should 

 have burned for a fortnight, but that it took 

 no longer to bring it under control. The 

 mountains in which the San Gabriel Re- 

 serve lies are so broken that a ranger often 

 has to spend several hours in making de- 

 tours to get ahead one mile. When there 

 are no paths to lessen the natural difficul- 

 ties slow progress is necessarily the rule 

 for the most experienced mountaineer. 

 Up the steep slopes the fire can easily out- 

 i- limb a man. Such being the case even 

 a large squad of constantly employed 



Called up suddenly from the nearest town, 

 these volunteers were largely, sometimes 

 wholly, incapable of doing anything with- 

 out supervision, or of keeping up with 

 their leaders. They had to work in a re- 

 gion where the lay of the land, compli- 

 cated and unfamiliar at any rate, was prob- 

 ably shrouded in smoke ; and even with 

 enough competent men to direct their 

 efforts, they were not the sort of material 

 upon which to rely. One of those who 

 left the woods with twenty-six others, on 

 July 3ist, characterized both himself and 

 his companions by saying (as reported 

 from Pasadena) : 



" Ranger Carter's legs were too long. 

 He would walk over the mountains as if 

 he had seven-league boots on. We city- 





