PROTECTION 149 



cleared of inflammable material, not so much to stop 

 the fire when it reaches this belt as to furnish a 

 safe area from which fire can be fought and, most 

 of all, from which back firing can be started. These 

 lines or belts are usually built along ridges. If a 

 fire starts on the lower slope of a mountain and the 

 wind carries it up the mountain toward the fire line, 

 the only hope of stopping the fire at the top of the 

 ridge at the fire line is to start fires on the top of 

 the ridge, which will burn down the slope and meet 

 the original fire coming up. In rare cases, as, for 

 instance, in the Idaho fires of 1910, the fires get to 

 be so large and swift that all methods of attack 

 prove futile and the only salvation is in natural 

 barriers, such as rivers, or a change of the wind, or 

 rain, to extinguish them. 



In all fire fighting work, the plan is to surround 

 the fire (if it cannot be beaten or smothered out) by 

 a trench, fire line, or fire break, and to prevent the 

 fire from spreadng. In this kind of work, shovels, 

 spades, mattocks, rakes, and hoes are used to move 

 the soil; saws and axes are used to remove fallen 

 trees from the fire line, and in some cases plows, 

 dynamite, and other implements are employed. 



