(gocft^ (Mloun^ain Tl7onbeif(anb 



some overlapping and mixing, but lodge-pole 

 pine noticeably stood by itself. 



Where first encountered, this fire was roaring 

 through a thick second growth of lodge-pole 

 pine. Scattered through this young growth were 

 hundreds of dead and limbless trees killed by a 

 fire of thirty years before. The preservative 

 effect of their fiery death had kept these great 

 pillars sound, though they had become checked 

 and weathered. They burned slowly, and that 

 night while the fire-front was storming a ridge, 

 these columns spread sparks and flames from 

 split sides, or as gigantic candles blazed only 

 at the top. Yellow pines and Douglas spruces 

 killed in an intensely hot fire are so cooked and 

 preserved that they will resist weathering or rot 

 for decades. I have seen a few of these pitchy 

 broken fellows standing erect in the depth of a 

 century-old second generation of forest with the 

 arms of the living trees about and above them. 



Down a slope a fire moves more slowly and 

 with lower temperature than upward on the 

 same slope. A fire may rush in a minute up a 

 slope which it would require a day to creep 



140 



