“I am Lieutenant Finch, and this is Lieutenant Bruce. We both are
members of the Army Air Service,” said Bob when Bill had ceased
speaking. “We have fishing licenses, but no campfire permits. We just
arrived here this morning and haven’t had occasion to light a fire so
far.”
“Babes in the woods,” remarked Cecil. “It is obvious that this is your
first visit in a National Forest. No one is permitted to light a fire
for any purpose in a National Forest during the forest fire season
without a campfire permit. It is fortunate that I ran into you when I
did, otherwise you might have been picked up by one of my rangers and
then it would have cost you something as a fine. First I will fix up
the permits, and then I will tell you something about these forests.”
Cecil then made out campfire permits for each of the two young
aviators. He then gave them a large size “Help prevent fires” slogan
to put on the windshield of their car.
“Let’s sit down,” said Cecil.
“You are both officials of the United States Government and, as such,
should know something about our forestry service and what it does,” he
continued after they had seated themselves on a log overlooking the
river. “As you look at these giant trees around you, they probably
don’t mean much to you. That Douglas fir over there is close to two
hundred years old. Some of those pines close by are just as old. You
can see that the lowest branches are over a hundred feet above the
ground. The tops of those trees are over three hundred feet above us.
An entire forest of those trees can be destroyed in a few hours
through the carelessness of a man who is enjoying a vacation in the
woods.”
“I never knew that trees grew so large,” said Bill. “I have seen the
giant Redwood trees in California, but I thought that they were freaks
of nature—that they were abnormal in timber life.”
“These trees are not as large in diameter as the California Redwoods,
but there are a great many more of them,” replied Cecil. “We have mile
after mile of trees as large and larger than these in Oregon and
Washington. In order to protect these trees, the government has set
aside certain forest preserves which are called National Forests.
There are 152 National Forests in the United States. Each of these
National Forests has a supervisor in charge. He has under him wardens,
rangers and lookouts. These men all work to detect and suppress
fires.”
“That is a large organization,” said Bill. “Why are so many men
needed?”
“The forests in the United States cover a large area,” replied Cecil.
“About twenty-nine per cent of the land area of the United States is
covered with timber. This timber is valued at six billion dollars.
Think of that. The Forestry Service has as its duty the protection of
that government property.”
“I never knew that there was so much timber in this country,” said
Bob. “We saw quite a lot as we drove up here, but six billion dollars’
worth is way beyond my comprehension.”
“There is a vast amount of timber here in the Northwest,” said Cecil.
“In fact about one fourth of all the timber in the United States is
located in Oregon and Washington. In spite of the fact that this
timber is worth money, most of the fires in the forests are caused by
the carelessness of man.”
“You don’t mean that they deliberately set the woods on fire, do you?”
asked Bill.
“They don’t mean to, but the results are the same,” replied Cecil. “A
camper forgets to put out his fire, he throws away a cigarette butt
without extinguishing it, or he lights a cigar or pipe and throws the
match down on the ground and the spark ignites the surrounding dried
leaves. Then a fire is started in the woods. That is the reason for
the campfire permits. It gives us a check on the people who come into
the forests. We also have a chance to warn them about the dangers of
forest fires and caution them as to the means that they should adopt
to eliminate any chances of fires.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Bill Bruce. “Heretofore all that these
woods have meant to me was just so many trees. Now I see the whole
timbered area in a different light. Can you tell us how you go about
locating a fire and what you do to put it out?”
“We have established lookouts on the highest peaks,” said Cecil. “Each
of these lookouts has a map. As soon as he observes a column of smoke
in the forest, he takes a sight on the fire and notes its bearing. The
adjacent lookout does the same thing. As a result we have an
intersection of two lines which gives the location of the fire. In the
case of a small one, the local warden will gather together a few men
and go and put it out. In the case of a large one, the forest
supervisor mobilizes as many men as he can from the surrounding
country and they try and localize it. In this way it burns itself
out.”
“What do you mean by a small fire and a large one?” asked Bill.
“A small one is usually caught as soon as it starts,” replied Cecil.
“A large one may cover thousands of acres and take hundreds of lives.
The Hinckley fire in Minnesota burned over 160,000 acres, destroyed
property valued at twenty-five million dollars and took the lives of
four hundred and eighteen people. That was an unusually large fire.
The Idaho fire covered larger acreage, but did not take as many lives.
That fire burned over two million acres and burned eighty-five people
to death. Recently we have managed to get the fires under control
before they get anywhere near that large.”
“What per cent of fires are caused by carelessness?” asked Bob.
“About eighty-five per cent of the 28,000 forest fires occurring each
year are due to human carelessness,” explained Cecil. “Each year we
hope that the number will be smaller, but the automobiles are bringing
more campers into the woods all the time. We are trying to educate our
visitors up to the point where they will consider the trees their
property as citizens of the United States and will guard against their
destruction just as if they were privately owned. You probably have
noticed the signs posted up everywhere cautioning people to use every
care to prevent fires.”
“Can you always extinguish a fire with man power?” asked Bill.
“It is sometimes very hard in the case of some of the larger fires,”
replied Cecil. “At times when we are about to throw up our hands in
despair, a providential rain will save the day. Then, on the other
hand, we may have a bad thunder storm and find as many as twenty or
thirty new fires burning where trees have been struck by lightning.”
Cecil took out a pipe and lighted it. After he had the tobacco
burning, Bill noticed that before throwing the match away, he broke it
into two pieces.
“Why did you break that match?” asked Bill. “I noticed that it was no
longer burning, and yet you seemed to be particularly careful to break
it before throwing it to the ground.”
“All real woodsmen use that means of being sure that they are not
dropping a spark when they think that the match is entirely
extinguished. There is no doubt of the match being out by the time
that you have broken it in half. That’s another thing, during certain
extra dry seasons, we do not allow any smoking at all in the forests.
I have bored you enough with this shop talk. May I join you in a
little fishing?”
“By all means,” said Bill. “We don’t know much about it. In fact, do
not know the kind of fish that we are trying to catch other than they
are trout.”
“You are liable to catch steelhead, rainbow, locklaven or brook trout
in the river here,” said Cecil. “What kind of flies are you using?”
“We aren’t using flies, we were using worms,” replied Bob.
“That’s no way to go trout fishing,” said Cecil. “It is not sporting.
Give the fish a chance. You can get your limit with flies, so why use
worms?”
“We didn’t catch any with worms,” replied Bill. “I thought that we
were going to, when I fell into the river, but the big one that we had
hooked broke away. We have some flies, but we did not know which to
use.”
“That’s a rather hard question to decide,” remarked Cecil. “Trout are
particular creatures. One can never tell at what they will strike.
Some days they will strike at flies similar to those you see flying
over the water. That is, if white flies are flying low over the water,
use an artificial white fly. However, that rule doesn’t always hold
good. I have been fishing when there were millions of live white flies
all over the water and the trout would not even rise for the one on my
line, but when I put a dark one on, I caught all kinds of fish.”
Cecil walked back to the trail along the river and secured his rod and
line from his car. Bill and Bob watched him carefully as he put on the
reel, wet his leaders in the water and then threaded his line along
the rod.
“I think that I will try a dark fly,” he said, as he attached a leader
to the line.
Both of the aviators were astonished when Cecil cast his line out onto
the river. The line went out with his casts at gradually increasing
distances until it was dropping his fly a good sixty feet from the
shore. The fly landed on the water without the semblance of a splash.
In fact, it alighted on the water very similar to the live flies which
occasionally dropped to the water’s surface. It rested for a moment
and then Cecil brought it back with a slight movement of the arm and
cast to another place. Bill was too much interested to do anything but
stand and watch. Bob, on the other hand, watched for a few moments and
then went some distance down the river and tried to emulate Cecil’s
graceful casting.
“One of the most important things to remember when fishing for trout,
is to stay out of sight,” said Cecil. “Trout are wary creatures and
can see you long before you can see them.”
There was a splash in the water near his fly and Cecil started to play
the fish. He did it entirely different from the way that Bob had. He
allowed the fish a certain amount of run, but consistently brought it
closer into shore and then finally threw it onto the bank with a
slight flip of his arm.
“Not so bad for a start,” said Cecil, as he unhooked the fish and held
it up for Bill to see. “A three-quarter pound rainbow. A few more of
these and we will have enough for lunch.”
“It looks easy enough when you do it,” remarked Bill. “I think that I
will try my luck.”
“You can never learn by watching someone else,” said Cecil.
“I will go upstream a little way,” said Bill. “You will have lunch
with us, won’t you?”
“Thanks very much,” replied Cecil. “I’ll meet you here at twelve
o’clock. Watch out for the steelheads. You will need a net if you get
a real large one on your hook.”
Bill walked a distance upstream and started to fish. He picked out a
place on the bank where the bushes were low and sufficiently open for
him to try casting. At first he had nothing but grief. His line became
tangled in the bushes and overhanging branches from the trees. It kept
him busy for quite some time disentangling his line. Once it was so
badly tangled that he had to cut off part of it. Finally he managed to
get it out on the water, but it landed with a splash and then only a
short distance from the river bank.
The more he tried, the worse it seemed, and then he managed to make a
good cast. His fly landed thirty feet or more out in the water. It had
no sooner struck the water than a small trout grabbed the hook. Bill
had a real thrill as he reeled the fish in. He brought it in so that
he could see it swimming around in the water. Then evidently he became
over-anixous, for he tried to throw it out on the bank, but instead
jerked the fish loose and it was gone.
Later when he looked at his watch and saw that it was time to return,
he had four small trout in his creel. He wound up his line as he
walked back to the automobile. Long before he arrived he saw the smoke
from a fire. Cecil was already starting lunch.
“How many did you get?” asked Cecil.
“Four,” replied Bill. “How many did you get?”
“The limit,” said Cecil. “Some of them are fair-sized fish. Some of
them not so large, but just the right size for eating. Have you ever
built a fire in the woods according to the approved method, which
eliminates all possibility of starting a forest fire?”
“No, I never have,” replied Bill.
“You should know how,” said Cecil. “You are going to stay here in the
woods for a while and it may save you a lot of trouble. I will show
you now.”