112 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



March, 



tiers of the whole region began to move 

 their household goods and live stock to 

 places of safety. 



A huge sa\vdu.st pile, with the slabs 

 from a million feet of lumber, was burn- 

 ing fiercely, throwing out streams of 

 fire for a hundred yards. The wind 

 was blowing a gale from the southwest, 

 which drove the flames across the track 

 of the Colorado Springs and Cripple 

 Creek Railway into the lops and tops of 

 the trees, which covered the ground 

 thickly over forty or more acres, from 

 which this lumber had been cut. The 

 fire was traveling northward along East 

 Beaver Creek up a ravine toward the 

 summit of Mount Rosa. This moun- 

 tain is heavily timbered, and there are 

 large groves of pine and spruce upon the 

 sides of Big Chief Mountain which must 

 have perished had the fire been allowed 

 to proceed in its course. 



James Parfet, a ranger, called for help 

 upon the section men emplo3^ed by the 

 railroad, who were trying to save the 

 bridge spanning East Beaver Creek, and 

 with their aid cleared the ridge along 

 the south and east lines of the fire. He 

 sent another force to the base of the 

 mountain to confine it wnthin the limits 

 of the gulch, which was in flames 

 throughout its whole length. In this 

 they were measurably successful, but 

 on Monday, September 23, the confla- 

 gration had nearl}^ reached the summit 



of the mountain in the vicinity of the 

 saddle, which is here about 1,000 feet 

 wide. By cutting a swath and by beating 

 back the ground fires with shovels, the 

 fire was mastered at this point, though 

 traveling northward, however, until ex- 

 tinguished at itsoutw^ard limits, on Tues- 

 day, September 23. Then the wind again 

 rose, growing gradually stronger. Dur- 

 ing this day and the following night trees 

 were falling in ev^ery direction, but by 

 the hardest kind of work the rangers 

 succeeded in holding the ground the}^ 

 had gained to the east, south, and west, 

 putting out hundreds of small blazes 

 and preventing the spread of flames 

 into the main body of timber. Some 

 of the rangers had been at work in this 

 manner for sixty consecutive hours. 

 The danger was, however, not passed. 

 Only on Sunday night, September 29, 

 did Superintendent May, who had been 

 on the ground all the week, consider 

 the work of salvage complete. 



To appreciate the task performed it is 

 necessary to be familiar with the condi- 

 tions of western woodlands. By inces- 

 sant labor in blinding smoke, in stifling 

 air, in undergrowth so thickly matted 

 that it impeded every motion, amidst 

 winds so changeable that often the hot 

 blast would fall upon them so suddenly 

 as to make escape difficult, these men 

 strove to save the fine forest cover of the 

 sources of North and South Cheyenne 



