well served, and some portions of the district lying along the 

 St. Joe River received rain enough to dampen the undergrowth. 

 The southern part of the district, that is the St. Maries drain- 

 age, received no rain at all, and the rainfall in the other districts 

 was simply enough to moisten the undergrowth, and in the few 

 days following this moisture was quickly dried out with the hot 

 winds. 



However, the fires in existence at that time were under 

 good control and many fires which had been fought early in 

 the season were completely out and we thought our danger 

 was practically over for the season. 



On the evening of August 20th there occurred the worst 

 electrical storm we have had since our organization, and the 

 worst known for many years in this locality. We are, as you 

 know, subject to electrical storms along the high divides be- 

 tween our rivers, but these are usually followed by some rain, 

 which is of great assistance in putting out the fires started by 

 the lightning. No rain accompanied the electrical storm of 

 this year, and the result was fires scattered on all the divides 

 south of the Coeur d'Alene River district. These fires were 

 so many and so scattered that it was an immense undertaking 

 to supply men, tools and provisions to man them all quickly, 

 but by the evening of the 22nd practically all of the fires so 

 far discovered had been manned. At this time the smoke was 

 so thick throughout the district that it was almost impossible 

 to discover a fire at all until it had attained sufficient force 

 to make itself plain, and many fires reported by our look-out 

 men were so hidden by the smoke that they were not actually 

 located for two or three days after the reports were received. 

 In one instance a logging contractor, his foreman and a cruiser 

 searched for an entire day for a fire that they must have passed 

 a number of times within two hundred yards. 



Fortunately we were favored by comparatively calm 

 weather for several days after the electrical storm. At this time 

 the conditions were, in our opinion, as bad, if not worse than 

 in 1910, and it is true that had the atmospheric conditions been 

 the same as in 1910, we would have had a loss to report that 

 would be staggering. As it was the continued calm weather 

 enabled us to materially retard the progress of these fires from 

 the beginning, and within a reasonable length of time we had 



