140 SURVEYS OP FOREST RESERVES. 



tion — still go into the mountains in the autumn to pick huckleberries 

 and to hunt. I received information of the most diametrically opposite 

 character regarding these Indians with reference to forest fires, being 

 assured by some that the Indians were invariably careful to put out .a 

 fire before leaving, by others that they set fires indiscriminately. I had 

 little opportunity to learn definitely how many fires should be attributed 

 to this source, but I may say that I saw a brightly burning fire at a 

 recently abandoned camp of Warm Springs Indians on Salmon Prairie. 

 The day was rainy, however, and it is possible that under other condi- 

 tions they would have extinguished the fire before leaving the camp. 

 I am strongly inclined to believe that the Indian agents should see that 

 when they issue permits to the Indians to go off the reserve it should 

 be distinctly with the understanding that they are to set no forest fires 

 and that they are to be personally responsible if they transgress this 

 regulation. 



Road improvement. — On August 4, while we were traveling on the 

 west slope of t"he Eogue Eiver — Port Klamath road — we passed, between 

 White Horse Greek and the Crater Lake Fork of the road, a distance 

 of about 3 miles, six fires that evidently had been set to burn stumps or 

 fallen dead trees out of the road. One of these fires was burning close 

 to standing timber, had already destroyed several logs upon the ground, 

 and was roaring through the top of a small black hemlock. It might 

 very easily have been carried into a large area of standing timber, and 

 had a strong wind sprung up no one could have prevented it from doing 

 so. Possiblyit afterwards did. Notfarabovewefoundamanwithatwo- 

 horse wagon and tools who was engaged in improving the same stretch 

 of road. He had been prying small logs out of the road with a crow- 

 bar, cutting off obstructing tree roots with an ax, and shoveling soil 

 into the holes in the road. It was unquestionably this man, doubtless 

 the road supervisor of the district or some one employed by him, who 

 had set the fires. In reply to a question the man, stopping work on 

 the log he was engaged upon when we met him, said, "Oh, I am going 

 to pick this one to pieces and burn it out after awhile." Whether any 

 of these fires afterwards developed into large forest fires I have no 

 means of knowing. I do know, however, that a fire set for the same 

 purpose along the road near the northwestern corner of Klamath Lake 

 had become unmanageable and burned over a considerable area. When 

 we passed the place the fire had been extinguished and we saw only the 

 destruction caused by it. Eegarding this possible source of forest 

 fires, especially with a knowledge of the very disastrous forest fires due 

 to the early road builders, it should be said that oificers in charge of 

 such work, if they must employ this means of clearing the road, should 

 use extreme care, should watch the fires closely, and should invariably 

 see that they are finally extinguished. 



Lightning. — It has often been claimed that many forest fires are due 

 to lightning. Little credence was at first placed by us in these reports. 

 We found many men who had heard of fires that originated in this 

 way, but only rarely a man who bad ever seen one. One day, as 

 Mr. Applegate and myself were upon a peak at the junction of the Oal- 

 apooia Mountains with the Cascades, looking for forest fires, we saw 

 close by us, not more than half a mile away in the forest, a small fire, 

 considerably larger, however, than a campfire should have been. The 

 region was one remote from'the ordinary routes of travel or any place 

 of public resort. We were therefore curious to know how the fire had 

 been started, and, supposing it had been caused by a wandering hunter, 



