File:Bulletin (Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters), no. 35 (1923) (19878284254).jpg

Title: Bulletin (Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters), no. 35
Identifier: bulletinpennsylv35penn (find matches)
Year: 1923 (1920s)
Authors: Pennsylvania. Dept. of Forests and Waters
Subjects: Forests and forestry
Publisher: Harrisburg, Pa. : The Department
Contributing Library: Penn State University
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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a: b in as u) o^ 'J r. u « LESSON NINE A FOREST FIRp)* Lon^ l!^^o^e„? reached the fire I could feel the heat in the air, could see the rolling smoke waves on high, and could hear the crackle and the crashing and the crunching of falling tree-trunks. Birds in alarmed flight winged ahead of the danger. Small game, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and groundhogs, were getting out of the way anrl were heedless of man. There was an even increased activity and excite- ment among the bugs. I never saw such swarms of Camberwell beau- ties, banded purples, angle-wings, swallow-tails, tortoise-shell, and dog-taced sulphurs. Deer clung to the shores, ready to take to the water. Bradshaw reported a big bull moose hanging out with his cattle, as if sensing comparative safety near to man. The fire caught a lot of pestiferous army worms and destroyed no end of vermin in its course. The fighters had brains and willingness and courage and resource, but we had nothing to fight the fire with. There wasn't a drop of water nearer than the shore. The main fire front was over two miles l?r"^V ^^ would take an ocean to conquer it. The trail was rockv We had shovels, picks, hoes, rakes, and axes. We could not ^et'a shovelful of non-combustible soil. All we could do was to whip at the fire with bundles of green withes. Bradshaw said that it would not run through a certain big green alder swamp, which would help check It. When the fire reached those alders, there was a hissing of a million serpents' tongues, and then a frying, sizzling sound as of the broiling of countless earth demons, and the alder swamp became blackish ashes on the ground. On came the fire. It consumed every particle of the covering of the rocky land, leaving it as bare, except for ashes, as when it left the bosom of the glacier that bore it. When it got to the trail, we could only make a brief resistance, that was more futile than the prattle of babies. Then we had to run for it or roast. Long before the ground fire got to the trail the aerial of flames and cinders had passed over us, igniting the forest beyond. There was nothing to do but pray, and there was a mighty lot of praying. The Indians said if Chief Mendoskong were alive and White Loon, the medicine man, was not dead they would make it rain. Even Greensky, who had been a famous rainmaker, had gone to the land of crippled deer and tame beaver. There was no hope. Only one thing can prevent forests fires: education of the people to a point where they can appreciate the danger and will practice adequate care. I have known careful woodsmen to start a tea fire on a rock shore covered with fibrous roots and dusty ligneous sub- stance and use plenty of water in an attempt to put it out before they proceeded. But the fire had eaten its way inch by inch between rock and soil where it was hidden and where the water did not reach it, only to burn through later and destroy miles of growth. So one must be very, very careful where he builds a fire in a dry time and more careful still about putting it out. "When forests fires reach their maximum, they are more than ter- rible in their fury. The very air seems-afire. There are those who believe that the air decomposes at a certain heat and that the gases ignite, forming an atmosphere of liquid flames. In the Peshtigo fire ♦By Chaa. S. Osborn. With permission of "The Outlook." 23 I 11% (?•

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