FOREST FIRES. 117 



Causes of Forest Fires. The only natural causes of forest 

 fires are friction and lightning, both of which occasionally start 

 fires in dead trees, but as such fires are most likely to be set 

 during a rain they seldom do much damage. Practically all the 

 injurious forest fires that have devastated the forested part of 

 this section have resulted indirectly either from a lack of appre- 

 ciation of the damage done by them or from carelessness and 

 ignorance. In the disastrous Hinckley fire of 1894 the damage 

 was done by a large fire formed by the combination of several 

 small fires that were allowed to smoulder in the swamps near 

 Hinckley for a week or more, which when fanned by a dry hot 

 wind attained an irresistible energy. If we had had a fire law 

 that could have been properly enforced at that time, or if the 

 people near Hinckley had been aware of their danger, that great 

 fire, with its attendant great loss of life and property, need not 

 have occurred. 



Fires Often Escape from Settlers when they are clearing 

 land, and are sometimes started by them to make pasture for 

 their stock. The carele'ss use of fire by the hunters, prospectors 

 and others who camp in the forest and leave their camp fires 

 unextinguished is another common cause of fires. Railroads set 

 many fires, and should be required to more rigidly conform to 

 the law requiring them to use spark arresters and to keep their 

 right of way free from combustible material. 



The moral effect of a properly enforced forest fire law is not 

 only very great in restraining the careless, but especially in edu- 

 cating law-abiding citizens in the idea that there is value in 

 young seedlings and timber trees. 



The Prevention of Forest Fires will be most certainly 

 accomplished by educating our people to an appreciation of the 

 amount of damage done by them. In some counties in this state 

 it is impossible to enforce the law against setting forest fires, 

 owing to the belief that fires are a good thing for their sections 

 in destroying tree growth and bringing the land into condition 

 to be easily taken up by settlers. There is some truth in this 

 claim, but, since the fires destroy all increase on the land they 

 sweep over, a large amount of it is thereby rendered entirely 

 unproductive long before settlers are ready for it, while in the 

 meantime it might be producing a crop of valuable timber. 



