Forest Protection 159 



ground fire and a shovel-full of mineral soil spread over 

 the advancing line will put out the blaze wherever it 

 touches. In digging a ditch to head off the fire, the dirt 

 should be thrown in toward the blaze so that the fire will 

 be too much weakened to jump the ditch. Often, when a 

 ditch cannot be placed effectually across the whole front 

 of the fire, it can be flanked obliquely and the front so re- 

 duced that it can be controlled, or it can be run into a 

 swamp or stream. Every s,wamp, stream, road or hill top 

 is a point of vantage from which to fight. There is such a 

 drought from a valley that little can be done with a fire on 

 a slope, but a very small fire break will stop it on a ridge. 



The time to fight fire is at night. In the day time when 

 the sun has dried up the dew, warmed up everything and 

 raised a wind, the flames cannot well be handled and the 

 fire will usually travel faster than a small crew of men can 

 work. A small fire may be attacked in the day time and 

 handled before it has gained great headway, but if it is 

 under full headway a great amount of labor is saved by 

 waiting till night to make a fight against it. The day 

 should be spent in studying the fire and the topography, 

 picking out good vantage points and making preparations 

 for the night's work. The wind usually goes down some- 

 what with the sun, the dew dampens everything and the 

 fire is reduced to a fraction of its daytime fury. 



When the tract abuts on another forest property, it is 

 well to place a road on the boundary or at least clear the 

 brush from a strip two rods wide, plow a few furrows on 

 either side and burn in between. This strip should be 

 burned over every year — preferably in the spring — and 

 kept clean. 



