FOREST FIRES IX XORTH CAROLIXA. 31 



It is well kuoAvn that many of our worst fires are of incendiary origin. 

 They are started by irresponsible and often vicious men, who are deter- 

 mined to injure their neighbors, or even one particular neighbor, or else 

 are indifferent to the loss sustained by property owners and the com- 

 munity at large. Experience has shown that it is usually very diffi- 

 cult to apprehend such offenders, because they operate in wild, uninhab- 

 ited country, and often at night. It would be folly to employ men to 

 prevent forest fires, require them to find out who started the -fires, and 

 then, when they come up with the offender, compel them to return many 

 miles for the purpose of securing a warrant for the arrest of such of- 

 fender. It is difficult enough to find the man who burns the woods, but it 

 would be next to impossible to make arrests if such a procedure w^ere 

 required. It has, therefore, always been found necessary to give forest 

 wardens the power of deputy sheriffs, namely, the power to arrest with- 

 out a warrant those caught in the act of violating the law. This power is 

 not likely to be abused, for it is the policy of the forest warden service to 

 maintain the closest relations of fairness and good-will with all the law- 

 abiding citizens of the district. A forest warden who presumed to mis- 

 use his power in this direction would at once be complained of so bitterly 

 that his removal would be accomplished without delay. The whole object 

 of the present law is to prevent and extinguish forest fires, and all other 

 motives must and will be strictly excluded from the operations of the 

 law. 



Assistance in Fighting Fires. 



The power to summons necessary assistance for fighting fires is given 

 to forest wardens and a small penalty provided for refusal to serve. This 

 means that unless some reasonable excuse can be given for declining to 

 assist in extinguishing fires the persons summoned will be liable to a 

 fine. If a reasonable excuse should be given, and the forest warden 

 should decline to accept such excuse — a contingency hardly likely to 

 occur — the justice of the peace before whom any action would come 

 would undoubtedly decide that such excuse was valid and that the warden 

 was not justified in declining to accept it. This adequately safeguards 

 the power of summons. 



C onipensation of Forest ^Yardcns. 



One of the most frequently advanced arguments against State forest 

 protection has been that by employing men to extinguish fires they were 

 being induced to set out fires in order that they might be reimbursed 

 for extinguishing them. Perhaps the simplest answer to such an argu- 

 ment is that only the worst men in a community would attempt such a 



