CHAPTER VIII

AT RISK OF LIFE

Mr. Bentley joined in the general laugh that followed Bob’s remark.

“Well, I don’t suppose it could be called exactly comfortable to have your hands blistered and your hair singed and not know whether the next minute you’re going to be alive or dead,” he admitted. “But after all there’s an excitement in fighting a fire and a sense of victory when you get the better of it that pays for all the work and pain. It’s a funny thing that when you once get into the work you don’t want to leave it. Once a forester always a forester seems to be the rule. I suppose the call of the woods to the forest ranger is like the call of the sea to the sailor.”

“I guess there’ll always be fires, so that you’ll never get out of a job,” suggested Frank Brandon.

“Right you are,” replied Mr. Bentley. “Do you know, that with all the advances that have been made in guarding against fires, more than three hundred thousand acres of woodland were burned over last year? Why, that’s equal to a strip ten miles wide reaching from New York City to Denver. The timber lost in one year would build homes for a city of four hundred thousand people.”

A gasp of astonishment came from every one of the boys.

“Did you ever!”

“Some loss!”

“What a shame to lose so much valuable timber!”

“Just what I say. Why can’t people be more careful with fire?”

“Those are mighty big figures,” commented Frank Brandon. “What are the causes of so many fires?”

“There’s a host of causes,” replied Mr. Bentley. “But most fires could be avoided. In one district last year, nearly forty per cent. of the fires were caused by smokers. Campers knock the sparks out of their pipes and throw away half smoked cigarettes. They fall in a little heap of brushwood that perhaps is as dry as tinder, smoulder there for a time and a little later break out into flames. The Government is doing all it can by signs and warnings to curb the evil, but as long as there are careless and inconsiderate people there will be forest fires.

“Then too, lightning is responsible for many fires. Often that brings its own remedy with it, for lightning usually occurs during a rain storm, and the water that comes down drowns out the fire that the lightning starts. But it doesn’t always work that way.

“Sometimes it’s a meteor that does the damage. Those big stones are sometimes white hot when they strike the ground, and if that ground happens to be in a thick wood, a fire is almost inevitable. Of course it isn’t often that that happens, but when it does, it has to be reckoned with, believe me!

“I’ve known of many fires that have been started by these fire balloons that you see sometimes drifting along the sky especially around the Fourth of July. It happens sometimes that the inflammable material in the balloons has not completely burned itself out when the balloon reaches the ground. If this happens in a dry spot in the woods, a fire is not only likely, but is a practical certainty.

“You’d think it strange perhaps,” the ranger went on, as he looked with a smile about the room, “if I told you that sleet and snow are responsible for many forest fires.”

“Sleet and snow!” exclaimed Bob. “Why, I should think it would be just the other way around and that they’d help put out fires instead of causing them.”

“That would be the natural supposition,” conceded Mr. Bentley. “What I mean is this. Whenever the winter has been very severe and there have been heavy storms of sleet and snow, the trunk and branches get loaded with tons and tons of ice. As a fierce gale often accompanies the storm, the heavily burdened trees are blown down. As the summer comes on, the dead tree and branches dry out, and all they need is a spark to set them going. If those dead masses of brushwood had been standing, living trees, the spark would have had nothing to feed upon and would have died out harmlessly.”

“Even nature seems in league against you, as well as the carelessness of men,” remarked Mr. Brandon.

“That’s what,” agreed Mr. Payne Bentley. “And there are times when one is tempted to grow disheartened. But great as the losses are, they’re not so heavy as they used to be. We’re gradually getting the best of the fire fiend, although at times progress seems slow. It’s only when you compare conditions of to-day with what they were before the Government woke up that you realize what great strides have been made in the protection of the forests.

“Of course, the most important thing in limiting the fire loss is the education of the public. They’ve got to cooperate and help stop the tremendous waste. When you realize that in the last five years there have been one hundred and sixty thousand forest fires in the United States and that at least eighty per cent. of these were preventable you see who’s responsible. The public is starting more fires than the small force of forest rangers can put out. Of course one way would be to forbid the public to camp in or travel through the national forests during the dry season. But that would be a hardship when you realize that more than five million people enjoyed their outings in those forests last year. Yet Canada has had to forbid it, and the United States may have to come to the same thing if tourists and campers will persist in leaving the burning embers of their campfires behind them and throwing from traveling automobiles lighted cigars into the brushwood.”

“What do you chiefly rely on in your work?” asked Frank Brandon.

“Airplanes and radio,” replied the ranger. “The airplanes are the eyes of the service and the radio is the tongue. The airplanes scout around above the forests, always on the watch for the slightest sign of smoke or flame. The instant they detect it they radio the news to all the listening stations for miles around. And they’ve grown so skilful in placing the exact location of a fire that in the squadron I was with last year thirty-three per cent. of the fires that were reported were within a quarter of a mile of the exact point stated. Nineteen per cent. came within half a mile, as was determined later by actual surveys of the ground. And none of the others were far out of the way. That’s something of a record, when you think of the height at which the aviators are flying and the wide extent of space that they have to cover.”

“I should say it was,” agreed Mr. Brandon, with a nod.

“And think of the promptness with which it was done,” went on Mr. Bentley. “Within ten seconds after the first trace of fire was discovered, the news was known for all of a hundred miles around.

“The airplane comes in handy, too, for carrying trained fire fighters to the scene of the trouble. I remember once carrying a bunch of rangers in seventy minutes to a burning area. To travel the same distance by land, journeying by canoe and by portage, would have taken three days.

“We flew at a height of three thousand feet, and when we got there we could trace the whole outline of the fire and decided where the firefighting gangs who came hurrying from every direction could best be placed.

“I tell you that was some strenuous job! Up in the air your eyes are burning and smarting from the pungent fumes that come from the trees below, and it is as much as you can do to see at all.”

“Just what was the plan on which the men did the work when they started to put out the fire?” asked Herb, with intense interest.

“First,” Mr. Bentley replied, “the gangs attacked the fire at its most dangerous point, which we pointed out to them. Some trees in the line of fire they chopped down. Then they cut fire lines through the leaf litter to mineral soil, threw sand on burning stumps and used water wherever it was available. They worked by shifts and got their food when they could.

“During that time, while one plane would be directing the work by radio messages, another plane would be busy in bringing supplies and food for the men. The fire lasted nearly a week before it was fully subdued, and, I can tell you, by that time we were all in!”

“It’s too bad that you have to rely so completely on man power,” commented Mr. Brandon. “No matter how much grit’s behind it, the time comes when human muscle has reached its limit and can do no more. It would seem as though in some way the machinery which does so much work in the cities could be used for similar purposes in the forest.”

“It would seem so,” agreed Mr. Bentley. “But the difficulty of transportation through a wilderness, that often has faint trails instead of beaten paths and sometimes not even those, is so great that I doubt whether machinery can ever be utilized on a large scale.

“We have made a little progress though in that direction. There’s a clever little pump that is operated by gasoline and weighs only one hundred and twenty pounds, so that two men can carry it along a forest trail. Each pump is provided with twelve hundred feet of hose, which gives it an effective radius of about a quarter of a mile, and a very small brook will suffice to supply it with water. It’s a dandy little machine, and I’ve known it to do the work of from sixty to seventy-five men working with shovels, hose and axes.”

“Some pump!” ejaculated Joe, in admiration.

“Almost as good as an engine,” came from Bob.

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Bentley. “But of course it can be used only when there happens to be water near at hand. No doubt the time will come when chemicals will be used instead of water, and then the pumps can work anywhere. But chemicals are of use chiefly at the start of a fire, and perhaps wouldn’t be feasible for anything on the scale of a forest fire.

“So for the present at least, and probably for some time to come, we’ll have to rely on the men in the Forest Service. I don’t mean that they have to do their work alone. When the alarm is given everybody pitches in and works like a beaver. There’s never any lack of volunteers. All in the vicinity unite to fight the common peril.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Jimmy, his eyes shining, “I wish I had a chance to fight a forest fire.”

“Same here,” came in a chorus from the other Radio Boys.