424 FIRE-CONSERVANCY. 



(8) Various combinations of 1-5 and 7. The most usual one will 

 be a fire-trace flanking one side of a stream or one or both sides 

 of a road, in order to increase the width of the fire-break to the 

 minimum of safety, and, in the case of a road, also to isolate it 

 from the standing grass and to prevent any risk from careless way- 

 farers, who often rest themselves by the side of a road or saunter 

 along carrying a burning fire-brand or torch or a lit hubble-bubble- 

 For the sake of economy the fire-trace flanking a stream need not 

 always remain on one and the same side of it, but may cross it at 

 various points in order either (a) to keep out of a heavy growth of 

 grass, or (J>) to get into grass that dries up early, or (c) to follow 

 easy ground, or (ci) to take a short cut at bends of the stream and 

 thus to reduce the amount of work to be done (Fig. 129), or (e) to 

 take the line past a belt or large mass of close-grown forest or 

 bushes into which fire cannot penetrate at the time of the fire- 

 tracing operations, thus doing away with the necessity of clearing 

 a guide line (see p. 426). In fire-tracing along one side of a road, 

 it is obvious that the very conditions of the combination rigidly 

 fix the side which the fire-trace should never leave. 



ARTICLE 2. 



LOCALISATION OF INTERNAL FIRES. 



When a forest is large, it is always expedient and nearly always 

 necessary to divide it into blocks completely isolated from one 

 another, so that if a fire broke out in any one of them, it could 

 not possibly spread into those adjoining. 



This division can only be effected by means of a system of 

 fire-breaks similar to those described in the preceding Article. 

 But whereas, in devising a system of fire-breaks to exclude fire 

 coming from outside, the boundary line cannot obviously be 

 deviated from, in the present case the forester is at full liberty to 

 choose the most economical and effective lines that offer. For 

 instance, he will make the most of streams, water-courses and 

 swampy places, ridges and spurs, roads existing and to be made 

 whether for traffic or for inspection, open grasslands, belts of 

 evergreen species and of others facilitating fire-tracing or oppos- 

 ing any kind of obstacle to the progress of fire. The crest of a 

 ridge or spur, if it is regular enough to be everywhere easily 

 accessible, offers the safest alignment of all for a fire-break, for 

 fire could not possibly be blown across it on to the other face of 

 the hill, however rapidly a conflagration rushed up towards it. 

 And here it may be necessary to warn the student against run- 



