fwtet Jfe* 



Another old burn visited was a small one in an 

 Engelmann spruce forest on a moderate north- 

 ern slope. It had been stopped while burning 

 in very inflammable timber. It is probable that 

 on this occasion either a rain or snow had saved 

 the surrounding forest. The regrowth had 

 slowly extended from the margin of the forest 

 to the centre of the burn until it was restocked. 



One morning I noticed two small fires a few 

 miles down the mountain and went to examine 

 them. Both were two days old, and both had 

 started from unextinguished camp-fires. One 

 had burned over about an acre and the other 

 about four times that area. If the smaller had 

 not been built against an old snag it probably 

 would have gone out within a few hours after the 

 congressman who built it moved camp. It was 

 wind-sheltered and the blaze had traveled slowly 

 in all directions and burned a ragged circle that 

 was about sixty feet across. 



The outline of the other blaze was that of a 

 flattened ellipse, like the orbit of many a wander- 

 ing comet in the sky. This had gone before the 

 wind, and the windward end of its orbit closely 



