ftytt of if e 



a fire invades an old forest, it is impossible 

 speedily to get rid of it. "It never goes out," 

 declared an old trapper. The fire will crawl into 

 a slow-burning log, burrow down into a root, 

 or eat its way beneath a bed of needles, and give 

 off no sign of its presence. In places such as 

 these it will hibernate for weeks, despite rain 

 or snow, and finally some day come forth as 

 ferocious as ever. 



About twenty-four hours after the lodge-pole 

 blaze a snow-storm came to extinguish the sur- 

 face fire. Two feet of snow more than three 

 inches of water fell. During the storm I was 

 comfortable beneath a shelving rock, with a 

 fire in front; here I had a meal of wild rasp- 

 berries and pine-nuts and reflected concerning 

 the uses of forests, and wished that every one 

 might better understand and feel the injustice 

 and the enormous loss caused by forest fires. 



During the last fifty years the majority of 

 the Western forest fires have been set by unex- 

 tinguished camp-fires, while the majority of the 

 others were the result of some human careless- 

 ness. The number of preventable forest fires 



162 



