14 
6. (a) Leaving a fire unextinguished on departing from 
camp. 
(b) Allowing a camp fire to spread after building. 
STATE LAW INTERPRETATIONS. 
A number of successful prosecutions have been made 
under section 16 of the general laws of 1905, which provides 
that a person may be punished for burning on his own land 
at certain seasons except under the supervision of and with 
the written permission of a State fire warden. The section 
follows: 
Sec. 16. It shall be unlawful between May fifteenth and 
October thirty-first, for any person or persons to burn 
brush, stumps, logs, fallen timber, fallows, slash, or grass 
brush or forest covered land or any other inflammable 
material or to blast with dynamite, powder or other ex¬ 
plosives, or set off fireworks of any kind in forest, fallows, 
grass or brush covered land, either their own or the prop¬ 
erty of another, unless done under a written permit from 
the State forester or his duly authorized agent, and in strict 
accordance with the terms of the permit; these restrictions 
not to apply to the ordinary use of fire or blasts in logging 
in the redwood region (Sequoia sempervirens). Provided, 
however , that no written permission shall be necessary to 
burn inflammable material in small heaps or piles, where 
the fire is set on a public road, in door yard premises, cor¬ 
rals, gardens, or plowed fields at a distance not less than 
100 feet from any woodland, timber, or brush covered land 
or field containing dry grass or other inflammable mate¬ 
rial. Any violation of this section is punishable by a fine 
of not less than fifty dollars or more than five hundred dol¬ 
lars or imprisonment for not less than thirty days nor more 
than six months in the county jail of the county in which 
the crime is committed, or both such fine and imprison¬ 
ment. 
Forest officers have no jurisdiction over fires wholly on 
Indian reservations; but Indians setting fires or causing 
fires to be set, whether on reservations or not, which fires 
spread to national forest lands, are subject to the above 
laws in respect to these offenses. If it is desired to arrest 
an Indian on a reservation for such a fire, this should be 
done through the Indian agent. 
It is doubtful if there is statutory authority by which an 
officer can commandeer property, such as an automobile, 
