THE REFERENDUM 



9' 



these fires occur early in the spring, for then 

 do they destroy the nests containing the 

 eggs or young of our game birds, while im- 

 mature animals, unable to escape from their 

 path, share a like fate. Forest fires are di- 

 rectly traceable to two causes. Carelessness, 

 either intentional or unintentional, on the 

 part of certain individuals, and the rail- 

 roads whose tracks run through these for- 

 ests are the chief causes of these fires. 

 Thoughtlessness on the part of inexperi- 

 enced hunters and campers in the woods 

 starts many a destructive fire raging. The 

 thoughtless knocking of embers from a pipe 

 onto the dried leaves, or the careless throw- 

 ing down of a lighted match, are quite suf- 

 ficient to start a serious conflagration. Many 

 of these fires are also started by some mean, 

 low-minded people, to avenge a real or fan- 

 cied wrong they have sustained at the hands 

 of some neighboring timber owner. Thus 

 they imagine that by firing the woods and 

 destroying their neighbor's timber they have 

 satisfactorily "squared accounts." It is a 

 great pity that these despicable rascals can- 

 not more frequently be caught in their 

 treacherous act. The sparks from passing 

 locomotives dropping into the forest bed of 

 dried leaves and underbrush very frequently 

 serve to start one of these fires. No matter 

 from what cause, or how started, one of 

 these fires once under headway in a country 

 of large forests is indeed a serious affair 

 to deal with. The flames, at first small, run 

 rapidly over the ground, fed by the dry 

 leaves and underbrush. Gradually growing 

 larger, these flames reach up and ignite the 

 low spreading branches of some bush. From 

 this they gain headway and spread to other 

 bushes, finally whipping around the second 

 growths and larger trees, with a dull roar 

 the flames mount higher and the forest fire 

 is embarked on its mad career. Once started 

 in a heavily forested country, one of these 

 fires, with a good wind behind it, will some- 

 times burn fiercely for weeks at a time. Fi- 

 nally encountering the impassable barrier of 

 some large river, it expends its force in vain 

 endeavors to reach over to the brush on the 

 opposite shore, and this failing, dies. _ Fight- 

 ing a forest fire is indeed no small job and 

 calls for much endurance, discomfort and 

 exertion on the part of the fighters. I have 

 helped fight many of these fires in the for- 

 ests of northern Pennsylvania; oftentimes 

 our exertions to check some particular fire 

 continuing for several days at a time. The 

 accompanying descriptions were taken by 

 the writer, during a particularly fierce 

 fire, which resisted our best efforts toward 

 checking it, for three days and nights. It 

 was one of those still, warm days of early 

 spring; a haze hung about the horizon and 

 everything seemed lazy and indifferent in the 

 warm spring sunshine. Towards noon we 

 detected a faint odor of burning pine, borne 

 to us on the faint breeze. An hour or two 



later dense clouds of black .smoke could be 

 seen rising up from behind a neighboring 



ridge of pine, while the atmosphere was now 

 SO smoke-laden as to smart one's eyes. The 



wind began to freshen and the fire was now 

 headed in our direction. Hastily summoning 

 all hands, and procuring water bucket ,, we 

 started on our work of fire fighting. Fol 

 lowing down a woodland road for about two 

 miles, we were on a parallel line with the 

 oncoming fire. Here we struck into the 

 woods and strung out along a small wood 

 road used by lumber teams. Our right wing 

 rested on a small spring, which was quite 

 essential in our operations. Each man, pro- 

 vided with a lighted pine knot, ran along this 

 road, starting the brush along one side blaz- 

 ing, and afterwards, seeing to it that the 

 fire was kept on that side and prevented 

 from crossing the road. We started a line 

 of fire all along one side of this road for a 

 distance of about two miles until we came 

 to a fair-sized stream. Thus we drove our 

 own fire against the forest fire, which was 

 now bearing down on us very rapidly, being 

 helped along by a strong wind. By forcing 

 our fire against the oncoming fire, we thus 

 burned all combustibles in its path, and so 

 hoped to check its further advance. This 

 method of fire fighting is known as "back 

 firing" and is usually effective in checking 

 or stopping these destructive forest fires. 

 Great care must be taken in "back firing," 

 however, to prevent the back fire from get- 

 ting away from you, thus making matters 

 worse than the original fire could. Back fires 

 should be started along one side of a road 

 or stream, as they can then be controlled and. 

 prevented from spreading in any direction, 

 save the one desired. We were now envel- 

 oped in a dense smoke with the wind against 

 us, and it required constant vigilance on our 

 part to prevent the flames of our own fire 

 from being blown back in our faces and 

 across the road behind us. As a precaution 

 against this we sent two boys, with buckets 

 of water, along our entire line of fire, con- 

 stantly soaking the undergrowth on the side 

 opposite the fire. The heat and smoke from 

 both fires were now intense and our eyes 

 were streaming water, while our heads 

 throbbed. It was at this stage that one of 

 my companions loomed up through the 

 smoke and gasped out that the fire had suc- 

 ceeded in crossing the road further on, and 

 was rapidly bearing down on our valuable 

 timber land and buildings. No time was to 

 be lost, and blindly rushing through dense 

 clouds of smoke and whirling sparks, we 

 succeeded in making our way back to our 

 main road. Stationing some of our men 

 along this road to> prevent, if possible, the 

 fire from crossing at this point, the remain- 

 der of our party rushed on parallel with the 

 fire, which was now raging through some 

 valuable pine timber. The blinding smoke 

 and suffocating heat from the fire at this 



