WON FOREST FIRE FIGHT 



story of a strenuous and 

 fight against a forest fire 

 which raged over 24,000 acres 

 and did damage to the extent of about 

 $30,000 is that brought back from the 

 Sitgreaves National forest of Arizona, 

 in the Third district, by Assistant Dis- 

 trict Forester F. C. Pooler. It is a 

 story which includes an eighty-mile gal- 

 lop from Snowflake, Arizona, by a 

 dozen rangers in twenty-four hours 

 over rough country, a night and day 

 struggle amid sizzling heat and acrid, 

 blinding smoke to drive back fierce 

 flames which, driven by high winds, 

 often leaped hundreds of feet at a 

 time. As high as forty men, including 

 assistants from ranches and cow camps, 

 were engaged for many days trying to 

 head off the fire, and the entire ex- 

 pense to the service in extinguishing 

 the blaze was about $1,700. 



Putting out the fire, which had a cir- 

 cumference of some thirty miles, was 

 made the more difficult by the fact that 

 the scarcity of rain had made things 

 extremely dry and that the sheep had 

 not yet been brought in to this district 

 the Chevalon district, of the forest for 

 their grazing; and because only from 

 fifteen to eighteen ranchers reside in 

 the whole district. 



The fire was started by lightning and 

 because of the sparsely settled nature 

 of the country would have swept an 

 enormous area but for the forest serv- 

 ice organization and the fact that sev- 

 enty miles of telephone line have been 

 installed in this region by the govern- 

 ment in the past year. 



The Sitgreaves forest is 893,720 

 acres in extent and the density of the 

 timber is indicated by the fact that half 

 a million dollars worth stood on the 

 burned area, the total loss being com- 

 paratively small in proportion to the 

 aggregate of standing timber. A few 

 cattlemen joined the forest service em- 

 ployes in the fight, although it is said 



592 



one large outfit that could have fur- 

 nished a dozen men failed to do so. 



Delay in reporting the fire resulted 

 from a curious incident. The lookout 

 who climbed with his spiked climbers 

 to the top of a 110-foot tree to take his 

 daily reconnaisance saw and reported a 

 fire on the Coconino forest, adjoining, 

 on June 7. Directly in line with this 

 fire was the smoke from the incipient 

 conflagration on the Sitgreaves, which 

 smoke appeared to be a part of that 

 from the Coconino and it was not until 

 the next day, June 8, that the lookout 

 telephoned in the report of his own fire 

 which by that time was well under 

 way. 



The first report came in to the 

 ranger station at 8 p. m. and next morn- 

 ing at 1 o'clock a force of fire-fighters 

 was on the scene, the aid of a few local 

 residents being secured. June 10, after 

 the rangers had been fighting desper- 

 ately night and day to head off the 

 blaze, a call for help was sent in to 

 Snowflake and Supervisor Jennings, of 

 the Sitgreaves, with Mr. Pooler and a 

 dozen rangers, hastily saddled up and 

 "hit the trail"- and a very rough trail 

 at that for the fire, making the eighty 

 miles in twenty-four hours, arriving at 

 4 in the evening, eating a hasty lunch, 

 starting to work and eating nothing un- 

 til well into the next day. All that 

 night, all the next day and all the next 

 night the little force worked without 

 rest. The fire was burning on about 

 5,500 acres when the officials arrived. 



The fire would apparently be checked 

 when at noon every day a high wind 

 would spring up and by 3 o'clock the 

 heat would be so intense that the fire- 

 fighters could not approach it, blazing 

 bark being hurled five hundred feet be- 

 fore the wind to start a hundred new 

 fires ahead of the main front. Finally 

 a fire line a quarter to half a mile 

 wide was run from Leonard canyon 

 to Willow creek, which checked the ad- 



