1246 



Canadian Forestry Journal, August, 1917 



Vernon district, broke away before 

 the gale on Saturday and became 

 entirely unmanageable. Every effort 

 is being made to confine the exten- 

 sion of its progress as much as pos- 

 sible. The extreme dryness of the 

 timber and the continued heat in the 

 Okanagan Valley is seriously increas- 

 ing the speed of the fires in this lo- 

 cahty, the hard work of the patrol- 

 men notwithstanding. 



"Six fires are reported from the 

 Similkameen section and minor af- 

 fairs at Baefaux Lake and Cherry 

 Creek, all of which are under com- 

 plete control. The situation on the 

 Island is considerably less serious. 

 The Cowichan Lake fire is regarded 

 as safe now, although still smoulder- 

 ing. 



Small fires are reported at Court- 

 enay, Ladysmith and Shawnigan. 

 While there has been great difficulty 

 in securing sufficient men to counter 

 the fires in many parts of the prov- 

 ince, the organization of the depart- 

 ment has don« a great deal to bring 

 the outbreaks under subjection much 

 cjuicker than has been the case hith- 

 erto. The most fortunate feature of 

 the fires this season has been the 

 small amount of destruction of mer- 

 chantable timber, a striking contrast 

 to the terrific damage in 1910." 



On the same date came this des- 

 patch from Nelson, B.C.: — 



Nelson, B.C., July 23rd.— With 

 much of the vegetation in the woods 

 as dry as tinder, forest fires spread 

 at an alarming rate on Saturday 

 and Sunday. In two cases, on 

 Sproule creek and in the Trail dis- 

 trict, men fighting the fires were 

 caught in tight corners, and had 

 narrow escapes from perishing in the 

 flames. In the Trail district the 

 fire, which jumped the Columbia 

 river on Sunday and menaced the 

 city of Trail, setting some houses 

 ablaze, ran at the rate of two miles 

 an hour. Winds all through the dis- 

 trict fanned the flames, and virtually 

 every fire to-night is reported to 

 have got out of hand. Only rain can 



stop them. There has been none 

 since June 24th. 



A A'arrow Escape 

 Doukhobors who were employed as 

 fire fighters in the Trail district were 

 surrounded by fire and had diffi- 

 culty in getting out. At Sproule 

 Creek a number of men were caught 

 in much the same way and had to 

 wait until night before they could 

 make their way back to safety. So 

 rapidly did the Sproule Creek fire 

 spread that the crew had to give up 

 any more hope of preventing the out- 

 break from spreading up the moun- 

 tains and was compelled to direct 

 its own whole efforts to keeping the 

 flames from creeping downward to- 

 ward Kootenay river. Qreat vol- 

 umes of smoke appeared in the sky 

 like clouds tinted by the red flames 

 below. 



Fires in Washington 



A great fire is raging in the State 

 of Washington. Fought by 200 men, 

 it was out of hand Sunday and travel- 

 ing toward Patterson, B.C., near 

 the international boundary. Trail 

 was reported to-day to be safe, the 

 blaze having been driven back, but 

 it is still raging around the city, 

 according to word from there at 

 midnight, but gradually spreading 

 away from it. The fire on the Dun- 

 can river in the Lardo district has 

 got out of hand and is eating into 

 a big stand of cedar. Fires in the 

 Arrow lakes district, which last week 

 were reported under control, are 

 out of hand also and spreading in 

 the vicinity of Arrow Park, East 

 Demars and Whatshan lake. 



Flathead Valley Suffers 

 A despatch three days later de- 

 clared that the fires in Western Al- 

 berta were then under control. No 

 rain had fallen at any point in the 

 south forest country. Fires between 

 Fernie and the Kootenay Lakes were 

 still burning without restraint, there 

 being a great dearth of men to com- 

 bat the progress of the flames. "The 

 timbered area in the Flathead Val- 

 ley" remarked the Calgary News- 

 Telegram, "has already sustained a 

 loss approximating hundreds of thou- 



