42 Report of tee Forest Commission. 



ing fires, or to extinguish every spark, the firewarden and his 

 men return to their homes. 



But this good fortune does not always attend them. The fire 

 may have occurred during some period of excessive heat and 

 drought ; the wind may arise, as it is very apt to do, and the men 

 who have employed every means that skill and experience would 

 suggest find themselves baffled and driven back by the advancing 

 flames. The men hold their ground manfully, working until 

 their faces blister with heat and their eyes smart with the 

 hot, blinding smoke. Overcome by the heat and choked with 

 the stifling smoke, they often fall back for fresh air, and, gasp- 

 ing for breath, throw themselves exhausted on the ground. The 

 fire which hitherto had been burning in the underbrush and dead 

 leaves along the ground mounts into the tree tops, where, fanned 

 by the rising wind, it roars and crackles with an appalling sound 

 that tries the strongest nerves. It flashes from tree to tree, and 

 as it catches in some dry, resinous pine or spruce, the tree bursts 

 into flame with a roar that makes the bravest fire-fighters fall 

 back. 



The flames, driven by the high wind, advance so rapidly that 

 the men quit their work and run for their lives. The forest for 

 a long distance is a seething mass of flame, whose roar fills the 

 air a mile away. Faster the flames sweep onward, while before 

 the advancing fire run the startled herds of game, large and 

 small, which instinctively hurry along in their effort to escape, 

 while above the wild roar of the flames may be heard the shrill 

 cries of the frightened birds whose wheeling flights precede the 

 drifting smoke. 



But the party of tired and smoke-begrimed men do not give 

 up the fight without further effort. Their number is reinforced 

 by others who have repaired to the spot in response to the 

 increasing danger or calls for help. Rapidly the party travels to 

 some place ahead of and in the path of the advancing fire. A 

 line of defense is hastily selected — some road, clearing or 

 stream — and then the " back-firing " commences. Torch in 

 hand, the men pass rapidly across this front and set fire to the 

 woods. These newly kindled flames burn backward toward the 

 main fire, which meets them and then dies out for lack of mater- 

 ial. The burned area is now watched carefully on all sides lest 



