Old residents and the pioneers of this region main- 

 tain that the Indians annually set out fires in or- 

 der to improve their hunting grounds and to stimu- 

 late the "bunch grass on the flats cc y,<3 to make bet- 

 ter feed for their ponies. Whether the Indians who 

 roamed over this region centuries "before white man 

 ever saw it did any such systematic "burning, is 

 questionable, but if they did, it is quite certain 

 that the fires would be set at the lower elevations 

 in the plains where the bunch grass grew the best. 

 It has been proven by the Sears Flat fire of 1910 

 that such burning would drive the frontier boundary 

 of the Forest back very mat erially. Sage brush, 

 mixed with dead bunch grass, burns like a blanket of 

 oil and even a surface fire in a forest where the 

 principal underbrush is sagebrush will kill all re- 

 producti on and saplings and a large share of the ma- 

 ture trees in ito path. Due to the speed that a 

 fire travels and the great heat produced, top fires 

 in si isolated trees whose branches are at least 40 

 feet from the ground have been known to occur. All 

 old residents, especially cowmen - and they were the 

 pioneers in the stock business - contend that over- 

 grazing has depleted the bunch grass on the plains 

 and that areas now covered with a sparse stand of 



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