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12/4/31 



Groing along there together, with Bill telling rae all this, I "began 

 to think of the forest' ranger' s joh as chiefly that of a road engineer, of 

 the type of those "pioneer souls" who blaze the paths where "highways never ran." 



That is, I did -until we came to some of those mountain meadows or 

 open grassy ridges. Then Bill turned his attention to the condition of the 

 forage plants as they had teen left when the sheep were taken off this summer 

 range. Then I >iad to revise my idea of a forest ranger. You loiow the 

 Government grants permits to ranchers to use parts of the national forests for 

 grazing their stock, their cattle and sheep. Bill's district, provides sum:ner 

 range for 5500 head of sheep. Bill has to check up on the sheep entering the 

 forest, and the condition of the range, so as to prevent over-grazing of the 

 land. In fact, he is a sort of Loss rancher, as well as a road engineer. 



He is a gsme warden, too, so the wild life of the forest comes under 

 his protectin^^ eye as well as the herds of cattle. And the animals include, 

 a lot of us t'-ro-legf^ed animals such as campers, and hikers, and fisherman, 

 and berry pid:ers, and hunters, and trappers, and stockmen, and loggers and 

 water power men. Of course, there are not enough of them to make the forest 

 fastnesses look like Main Street on a busy afternoon. 



The car-iners and hikers. Bill tells me, used to cause him more trouble 

 than they do now. But nowdays they are getting tamed to the ways of the wild. 

 There are more of them, but most of them are more careful to see that the last 

 spark is put out before they leave a camp site. They don't throw still 

 smouldering cigarette butts in the forest litter, as much as they once did, 



Tliat is a big help to Bill. As you know, protection of his forest 

 from fire is one of any forest ranger's biggest jobs. Eternal vigilance is 

 the price of safety to the timber and the animals and even the human beings 

 who use the vfoods for recreation, Not only are thoughtless, careless campers 

 a menace rihich often blasts fine stands of timber over wide stretches of 

 land, but many fires in Bill's district are set by lightning. 



His loo]:-out men on the high peaks must see the tell-tale smoke of 

 fire from aiiy cause and report it at once. That is one of the main meanings 

 of that 140 miles of telephone lines, and those more than seven hundred miles 

 of roads and trails. The fires must not only be reported promptly, but the 

 crews of f iro~f ighters must be rushed to the scene of action as quickly as 

 possible, to prevent the spread of the damage. 



In his little district 1 call it little, because in all its vastness, 



after all it is just a little comer of one of our 149 national forests he 



has a total sur.mer force of 52 men. That is an average of one man to each 

 5000-odd acres. 



Those fifty-two are Bill's first line of defense against forest fires. 

 Bill is the fire chief. I'm not going to tell you any tales of heroism, of 

 thrilling rescues, and daring struggles of men trapped in the flames and smoke. 

 The records of the United States Forest Service are full of them. They have 

 been told in song and story. Most any old forester can set your spine tingling 

 with some which have never seen prirt. Some of Bill's men tell me that Bill has 

 some first hand iGiowledge of fights with the fire demon which have left their 

 scars. But Bill doesn't talk much about such things, ^ith him, it is an 

 everyday job, to prevent fire if possible, to -nut it out promptly, if started. 



