FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. IO3 



Another disastrous condition existed in the wind, which was blowing steadily 

 most of the time, generally from the northwest, and which on April thirtieth 

 became a furious gale that filled the air with sand and gravel, forcing travelers on 

 the highways to seek shelter, and pelting the buildings with a sound like that 

 of driving hail. The wind carried sparks and burning brands from the railroad 

 fires a long distance through the air and started fresh flames miles away. The dry 

 condition of the forest generated an intense heat when once fairly aflame, rendering 

 it extremely difficult and dangerous to approach a burning area except on the 

 safe side. In the fire on Township 41, where the large trees grew close 

 to the side of a quiet pool in the inlet of Big Moose Lake, the burning timber 

 threw out a fierce heat that raised the temperature in the pool so that its surface 

 was strewn thickly with dead Trout. These were the conditions under which the 

 firewardens and their men were obliged to fight in the fires of 1903. 



At the first outbreak of the trouble the attention of the railroad authorities 

 was called to the dangerous conditions existing along their respective lines, where- 

 upon they issued orders that the screen on each locomotive should be inspected, 

 and that defective ones should be repaired immediately. Still, the engines con- 

 tinued to throw sparks and ignite the dead grasses along the track, or kindle 

 flames in the dry brush and fallen leaves along the boundaries of the adjacent 

 forest. As the resident population was too small in numbers to cope successfully 

 with the increasing fires, the New York Central sent several carloads of Italian 

 laborers to assist in the work along their line, for which no charge was made to 

 the town or State. The superintendent of the Adirondack Division, in compliance 

 with a request from this Department, placed patrols, one man to the mile, on the 

 Saranac branch in order to protect the State plantation of 700 acres near that portion 

 of his line. Freight trains were divided and run in two sections for the purpose of 

 lessening the load on the engines and thereby decreasing the force of the exhaust; 

 and on May seventh orders were issued discontinuing some of the freight trains 

 temporarily in hopes that rain would soon relieve the situation. 



But the officials of the Saranac and Lake Placid Railroad made no apparent 

 effort to lessen the danger from their trains, and manifested a surprising indiffer- 

 ence when notified of the destruction caused by their locomotives. The great 

 fire which at one time threatened the hotels at Lake Placid, and burned over an 

 area of several square miles, was started by a locomotive on that road. At this time 

 a construction company was engaged in the work of widening the gauge of this line 

 and making a new roadbed in places. In the performance of its contract this com- 

 pany employed some small engines — such as are used by contractors in railroad 

 building — which were evidently starting some of the fires along that line as well as 



