144 OUR NATIONAL FORESTS 



lookout men have sighting devices, usually ali- 

 dades, which are placed on the map, by means of 

 which they sight at a fire; but the bearing of the 

 fire is read from the angles marked on the edge of 

 the map, which is in reality a large protractor. 



By these devices a fire is quickly and accurately 

 located. When the lookout man sees a fire, he gets 

 its bearing from the map by means of the sighting 

 device. He telephones this bearing to the Ranger, 

 or, in many cases, to the Supervisor. Imme- 

 diately the Supervisor goes to his map, picks up 

 the black thread attached to this lookout point, 

 stretches the string, and, having marked off the 

 bearing, pushes the thumb tack into the map. In 

 the meantime, another lookout, perhaps two more, 

 have sighted the same fire. The black threads from 

 the other lookout points on the Supervisor's map 

 are stretched and fixed in a similar manner. The 

 fire will be found to be at the point where two or 

 more of these black threads intersect. This is only 

 one of the many ways which have been devised to 

 locate forest fires; there are other methods, but all 

 are based upon the same principle. 



The Fire Fighting Organization. The organ- 

 ization of men who do the actual fire suppression 



