Conservation Commission 159 



If the fire is a large one and many men are employed to fight it, 

 the man in charge should keep the whole situation in hand. He 

 should at all times know the progress of the work all along the fire 

 line. If necessary, he must appoint lieutenants or foremen to 

 take charge of certain sections, while he himself moves around the 

 fire constantly planning the attack. 



Methods of Attack 



Whenever possible a fire should be attacked from the front. As 

 a fire travels before the wind, it spreads out until its front may 

 cover several miles. The front of the fire is where the fire fighters 

 are most needed. If the fire can be checked along the front the 

 sides and back can be attended to later. 



It is essential that a forest fire be surrounded by a strip clear of 

 all inflammable material before the fire may be said to be under 

 control. In moist situations where the fire burns itself out, this 

 strip may be supplied by the edge of the burn itself. The ground 

 which has been burned and on which the fire has died out, will not 

 furnish fuel for the flames. Where it is necessary to extinguish 

 the fire some sort of a line must be cleared unless a natural barrier 

 is so located as to lend itself to use for this purpose. 



Trenching 



If the burned area can be surrounded by a trench from which 

 everything has been removed down to the mineral soil, an excel- 

 lent fire line, and the only kind that will stop a ground fire, is 

 secured. Such a trench may be made with mattocks, shovels, hoes, 

 rakes or other similar tools. The implement best suited for use 

 m fighting fire in a given forest region must be largely determined 

 by experience. If the forest floor is covered with a deep layer of 

 duff or humus, shovels and mattocks will usually prove more ser- 

 viceable than hoes or rakes. On the other hand, if the humus is 

 shallow and the mineral soil is near the surface, a wide, clean fire 

 line can be cleared very rapidly with a rake. 



It often happens that in dense forest there is considerable chop- 

 ping to be done to clear the fire line of trees, standing and down. 

 logs, brush and other material of like nature. In this kind of 



