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 careless 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. 
