AMERICAN BUSH FIRES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 158, 13 October 1910, Page 5

AMERICAN BUSH FIRES

EE-BUILDING TOWNSHIPS. LOADS OF PROVISIONS ARRIVING. By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright. Received 12, D.30 p.m. Vancouver, October 18. The townships of Spooner and Baudette will be .re-built. The work of erecting temporary shelters for the homeless has begun. Train loads of provisions are arriving. v

Mr. Pinehot, the United States Chief Forester under Mr. Roo-evelt, in praising the work ot the Forest Service, says:— "Forest fires are preventable. It is a good thing for us to remember at this time that nearly or quite all of the loss suffering and death these fires have caused is wholly unnecessary. A fire in the forest is the same kind of thing as a fire in the city. There is only one way to fight either . The fire department o'f every city is organised with the prime idea of getting .to the fire when it is young. So with forest fires. The time to conquer them is before they grow strong. If a forest is equipped with roads, trails, telephone lines and a reasonable number of men for patrol there is no more likelihood that great fires will be able to get started than there is that great conflagrations like the Chicago fire will get started in the city with a modern fire department. Under rare circumstances they may, but the chances are against it. The Forest Service has done wonders with its handful of devoted men. It has put out every year many thousands of small fires, any one of which under favorable conditions might have developed into a conflagration which ten thousand men could not stop. This year, because of the great drought—the worst in much of the West for more than twenty years—there were too many fires and too few rangers."