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t . 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION'. 



1 21 



the practice of forestry in the United 

 States will be carried forward on a very 

 large scale. The education of the public 

 to an appreciation of the value of forests 

 will be the quickest and most effective way 

 to accomplish their careful preservation. 



The Fire On another page will be 

 Question. found a list of forest fires 

 that have been reported 

 up to the time of going to press on this 

 number of the Forester. The season of 

 the year when forest fires are most likely 

 to occur has scarcely arrived and yet in a 

 month there is recorded severe fires in nine 

 states, showing not only the usual loss in 

 timber burned, but destruction of houses, 

 barns, fences and in several cases even 

 towns were in imminent danger of de- 

 vastation. 



* From now until late autumn the chron- 

 icling: of forest fires will be an almost 

 daily occurrence. What this means the 

 forester, the lumberman, the owner of 

 timber lands and the lover of forests fully 

 appreciates. 



With these reports of forest fires will 

 come cries from many quarters for fire 

 legislation, and theories without number 

 for the prevention of fires will be ad- 

 vanced. Candidly the fire question has 

 been carefully studied by the most com- 

 petent experts in the country and there is 

 neither a lack of knowledge of fires and 

 their origin, nor laws for the punishment 

 of those responsible for them. 



There appears two, effective though 

 not original ways of controlling this ever 

 recurring, and greatest enemy of our for- 

 ests. The first is a proper enforcement of 

 the existing fire laws ; for on the statute 

 books of nearly everv state in the union 

 will be found laws that if properly en- 

 forced would go a great way toward lessen- 

 ing the number of fires. The second is 

 to educate the public mind to a proper ap- 

 preciation of the value of forests and 

 what a formidable and destructive enemy 

 fire is to them. 



In most cases the origin of a forest fire 

 is not hard to determine. Sparks from a 

 passing locomotive, carelessness on the 



part of farmers and settlers, in clearing 

 land and burning brush, allowing the 

 sparks and flames to escape to the woods : 

 a half burned match or lighted cigar 

 dropped while walking through the woods : 

 the neglected camp fire of the hunter or 

 camper; the burning over of lands by 

 cattle and sheep owners to secure good 

 pasture for the next season, or the vandal 

 who sets fire to the woods for revenge ; 

 all these are well known causes of forest 

 fires and in fact responsible for nearly all 

 of such conflagrations. 



Aside from the destruction of mature 

 timber, and the killing of young growth, 

 forest fires frequently menace human life. 

 To show what havoc may be wrought by 

 these fires it is onlv nesessary to recall sev- 

 eral notable fires. The Miramichi fire in 

 New Brunswick, which burned over an 

 area of 2,000,000 acres, caused a loss of 

 over 500 buildings and 160 lives. In 1S71 

 Peshtigo, Wis., was destroyed by a forest 

 fire, 2,000 square miles of territory were 

 burned over, and between 1,200 and 1,500 

 people perished in the flames. A more 

 recent disaster of this kind was the Hinck- 

 ley, Minn., fire of 1894 in which 500 lives 

 were lost and more than $25,000,000 

 worth of property destroyed. These are 

 only a few of the worst cases. 



A fire in New Jersey during the month 

 of April was only prevented from destmv- 

 ing a town by the combined efforts of its 

 residents. These examples serve to show 

 what terrible havoc is possible from forest 

 fires, and does not take into account the 

 thousands of less important fires that occur 

 annually, which, in the aggregate, destro} 

 millions of dollars' worth of valuable tim- 

 ber and other property. 



Let those charged with the administra- 

 tion of the laws see that they are rigidly 

 enforced. A few years of such rule will 

 impress the careless hunter or maliciously 

 inclined persons, and fires will growmuch 

 less frequent. Meantime let the friends 

 of our forests continue to teach the indi- 

 vidual a true appreciation of their value to 

 the community and there will be less ne- 

 cessity for the laws. When the public IS 

 thoroughly aroused to the importance oi 

 forests there will be an. used a public 



