DAMAGE DONE. 643 



danger. Fire burns more slowly down-hill than up-hill, and 

 the more so the steeper the slope and the stiller the air. As 

 a slow fire is more easily regulated than a fast one, in jhums, 

 or cultivations on forest clearings where the branches and 

 undergrowth are burned, it is better to burn down-hill. 



e. Soil-C'oi'frin(j. 



A tall growth of heather, genista, broom, or grass, etc., 

 increases the danger of fire, and so does an undergrowth of 

 juniper or of sundry conifers. A mossy covering is pre- 

 judicial only in seasons of drought, and a covering of dead 

 leaves or needles is usually a bad combustible, though fire in 

 it may smoulder on for days. Whenever much branchwood, 

 refuse of fellings and dead fallen wood, lie on the ground, the 

 danger is increased. 



Above all, Scots pine woods on heatliland with dry soil 

 and soil-covering and combustible foliage are most exposed to 

 forest fires. In a pine wood, where all the soil-covering has 

 been removed, a fire would find nothing to feed on. 



In badly stocked Indian forests, the grass is frequently 

 G — 8 feet in height, and in the open in Assam, the flowering 

 stems of reeds may attain a height of 24 feet. The fierceness 

 with which a fire passes through tall grass during the dry 

 season must be seen to be believed, the sparks and flames 

 sometimes crossing rivers one hundred yards broad. 



The leaves of many of the Indian forest trees, such as the 

 teak {Tectoria (jrandis, L. fil.) and the Sal {Shorca rohnsta, 

 Gaertn.) fall in March and April during the dry season and 

 when dead are very inflammable. 



/. Densitij of (Jrowth and Ej- lent of Forest Area. 



In 80 far as density of growth kills down heather, grass and 

 other inflammable undergrowth, and provided all dead wood is 

 removed in the thinnings, a densely stocked wood is less liable 

 to be ignited than a thin wood with inflammable undergrowth. 

 Once, however, that a dense forest is ignited, and especially if 

 the fire is in the crowns of the trees, it can generally be ex- 

 tinguished only by a fall of rain, or a sufficiently wide gap in 



T T 2 



