INTENSITY AND VIOLENCE OF FOREST FIRE. 419 



burn, and the less heat will it give out. It is equally evident that 

 the longer the season during which fires can occur is, the drier will 

 generally be the grass on any particular date and the longer will 

 it be found in a perfectly dry, and, therefore, its most highly 

 inflammable, state. The difference in the length of the fire season 

 in different parts of the country is very striking. In many forests 

 in the Punjab and Central India extensive conflagrations may in 

 any year occur as early as the beginning of October, and the season 

 does not close until the setting in of the S. W. Monsoon rains, 

 which event takes place in June in Central India and not until 

 July August in the Punjab. In many sal forests, on the other 

 hand, fires are possible only during two or three months out of the- 

 twelve. The length of the fire season of course depends primarily 

 on when the grass dries up. Grass always dies down and dries up 

 after fructification is complete. The drier and warmer the soil and 

 climate are, the sooner will the ears ripen and the stalks dry up. 

 But the grass may also die and dry up prematurely from the 

 effects of frost. In either case it becomes fit to burn earlier out in 

 the open than under the cover of trees. 



(3) Abundance of fallen leaves. Outside the Himalayas, in 

 forests liable to conflagrations, the climate is warm enough to cause 

 shed leaves to crumble and decompose almost in a single 

 season, so that when such forests are continuously preserved from 

 fire for several years, no more than the fallen leaves of a single 

 season can accumulate to feed any fire that may occur. In the 

 cool air of the Himalayas, on the other hand, especially in forests 

 containing conifers, decomposition and disaggregation are so slow 

 that the ground may be covered with the accumulated unreduced 

 fallen leaves of several years, forming a close mass more than a 

 foot thick and burning like tinder, very gradually and with little 

 or no flame. Seedlings standing in such rubbish are bound to 

 be burned to death. As regards a pure leaf-fire generally we may 

 say that even before a high wind and with the leaves packed loose 

 and high, the flames will seldom rise up more than a few feet, rarely 

 scorching the crowns of anything taller than small poles. 



(4) Size and nature of the leaves. As just said above, some 

 leaves, like those of conifers, take several years to decompose, and 

 consequently form a thick accumulation of combustible matter 

 on the ground. Besides this, resinous leaves are obviously more 

 highly inflammable than those that are non-resinous. Large 

 thick fibrous leaves, like those of teak, not only form a thick 

 loosely-packed mass, which flares up high and fiercely, but iiidivi- 



