HOW THE FORESTS SUFFER FROM FIRES

He who wantonly kills a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall travel a desert waste
Of pitiless glare, and never a stream,
Nor a blade of grass, nor an inch of shade
All in a wilderness he has made.
O, forlorn without trees!

He who tenderly saves a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall list to a hermit thrush
Deep in the forest by mountain stream,
With friendly branches that lead and shade,
All in a woodland that he has made.
O, the peace of the trees!

He who passionately loves a tree,
Growth and power shall understand;
Everywhere he shall find a friend.
Listen! They greet him from every land,
English Oak and the Ash and Thorn,
Silvery Olive, and Cypress tall,
Spreading Willow, and gnarled old Pine,
Flowering branches by orchard wall
Sunshine, shadow, and sweetness of glade
All in a Paradise he has made.
O, the joy of the trees!

The Dryad’s Message

Have you ever seen a forest fire? It is a terrible sight to see the flames sweep up a mountain side. They run along the ground licking up the leaves and dead branches. They leap from tree to tree, and then with a roar the sheet of flame goes to the top of a tall pine. The air is like the breath from an oven and is filled with sparks and with suffocating smoke. The birds and animals flee away in every direction.

It is no wonder that those whose homes are in the forest gather quickly to fight the fire, for if they cannot control it, they may lose everything that they possess. If there is a wind blowing, the fire will probably sweep over many miles of country. At night, though, when the air becomes cooler and more quiet, the men can get the advantage of it.

You can understand, of course, that it is impossible to use water against such a fire, for water is not to be had throughout most parts of the forests. Instead of using water, the men fight fire with fire. Taking shovels, hoes, and rakes to a suitable place some distance ahead of the fire, they rake away the dead litter on the ground, making a broad, clean path through the forest. Then they set “back-fires” along that side of this clean path which lies toward the coming fire. These back-fires burn slowly toward the main fire, and when they meet both must die out for lack of fuel.

For many years forest fires have caused as much damage as the lumbermen; but now most of the forests are patrolled by rangers during the summer, and there are fewer serious fires.

How do the fires start in the forest? It is supposed that long ago the Indians set many fires to keep the woods open for their hunting. Lightning has always been a frequent cause of forest fires. As many as a dozen fires are known to have started during a single thunderstorm. But such fires are not as serious as they once were, because the rangers are on the watch for them and put them out before they get well started.

Aside from those due to lightning, most forest fires are now either set purposely or come from engine sparks or from somebody’s carelessness. Many fires are set purposely by stockmen who think by this means to clear away the brush and thus obtain better feed for their cattle and sheep. These men often care nothing for the forests or for the preservation of the summer water flow. They would, indeed, be pleased to see all the forests burned away if by that means they could increase their feed. If you could travel through some of the mountainous portions of the Southwest, you would see how much harm has been done in this way to the trees, the streams, and the soil.

It is a hot summer day and two men are riding along a mountain road. One of them thoughtlessly throws away a lighted cigarette, which falls upon some dry pine needles. In a few moments the pine needles are ablaze. The fire spreads with incredible rapidity and a great column of smoke rises above the treetops. Before any one can reach it, the fire is sweeping up the mountain side, and it may not be stopped before it has destroyed thousands of acres of valuable timber. All this terrible loss is due to one careless man who, in the first place, should not have been smoking cigarettes, and in the second place should have known better than to throw a spark into the forest powder magazine.

Some campers, enjoying the summer in the mountains, go away leaving their fire burning. By and by a stick burns outward until the fire reaches the leaves, or a gust of wind comes along and carries a spark to them. In the hot sun the leaves and needles are almost as easy to ignite as powder, and in a few moments another fire is making headway into the surrounding forest.

A farmer clearing land thinks he can get rid of the brush and young trees more easily by burning. But the undergrowth is drier than he thought, and, the wind coming up unexpectedly, the fire is soon beyond his control. It may destroy his own fences and buildings and, sweeping on, ruin those of his neighbors also.

Few people have perished from fires in the West, for there the forest regions are generally thinly inhabited, but in some of the Eastern and Northern states there have been terrible fires that have destroyed whole villages together with their inhabitants.

In many mountain regions of our country there are large areas now covered with useless brush where there were once valuable forests. In regions where the lumbermen have not utterly destroyed the forests, but have left some seed trees, the forests will come back again, but in these large burned areas conditions are not favorable. The destruction of the humus as well as the trees has been so complete that the seeding of a new forest is slow work. It may be hundreds of years before the trees will spread over and again take possession of the waste land.

A single fire often destroys more timber than would be destroyed by a whole camp of loggers working for years. In the Northwest there are many sad and desolate pictures of the destruction caused by forest fires. We may travel for miles through forests of tall, dead stubs, the remains of once noble trees. Where they have fallen the trunks lie piled many feet high and trails had to be cut through an almost solid mass of timber.

Here is wood enough to supply thousands of people with pleasant winter fires. But there are, alas, no people living near these vast woodpiles and often no road to them. The logs must lie there and rot.

Now let us see if we can state the chief reasons why we should be exceedingly careful about setting fires in the woods:

1. Fires destroy an enormous amount of valuable timber every year.

2. Between fires and lumbermen our forests are disappearing faster than they are growing.

3. Fires destroy the young trees, and if they happen often enough will keep them from growing up to replace the mature trees.

4. Fires do not permanently help the cattle ranges, but injure them by burning the humus and grass seeds.

5. Fires leave the ground bare, so that it will dry out quickly.

6. Fires leave the soil unprotected, so that it will wash away quickly.

7. Fires destroy property and endanger lives.