rails and fire
lines clear and the telephone in working order, and sees to it that the
fire fighting tools, such as spades, axes, and rakes, are in good
condition and ready for service. If he is wise, he establishes such
relations with the people who live in his neighborhood that they become
his volunteer assistants in watching for forest fires, in taking
precautions against them, and in notifying him of them when they do take
place. [Illustration: STRINGING A FOREST TELEPHONE LINE]

Fighting a forest fire in some respects is like fighting a fire in a
city. In both, the first and most necessary thing is to get men and
apparatus to the site of the fire at the first practicable moment. For
this purpose, fire-engines and men are always ready in the city, while
in the forest the telephones, trails, and bridges must be kept in
condition, and the forest officers must be ready to move instantly day
or night.

It is far better to prevent a forest fire from starting than to have to
put it out after it has started; but in spite of all the care that can
be exercised with the means at hand, many fires start. Each year the
Forest Service men extinguish not less than three thousand fires, nearly
all of them while they are still small. At times, however, when the
woods are very dry and the wind blows hard, in spite of all that can be
done, a fire will grow large enough to be dangerous not only to the
forest but to human life. Thus in the summer of 1910, the driest ever
known in certain parts of the West, high winds drove the forest fires
clear beyond the control of the fire fighters, many of whom were
compelled to fight for their own lives.

The worst of these fires were in Montana and Idaho, where the whole
power of the Forest Service was used against them. The Forest Rangers,
under the orders of their Supervisors, immediately organized or took
charge of small companies of fire fighters, and began the work of
getting them under control. But so fierce was the wind and so terrible
the heat of the fires and the speed with which they moved, that in many
places it became a question of saving the lives of the fire fighters
rather than of putting out the fires. As a matter of fact, nearly a
hundred of the men temporarily employed to help the Government fire
fighters lost their lives, and many more would have died but for the
courage, resource, and knowledge of the woods of the Forest Rangers.

Take, for example, the case of Ranger Edwar