fire-threatened heights and hurry through smoke-filled forests, I took
a good look at the destruction from afar and then hastened toward the
nearest fire-front. This was a smoke-clouded blaze on the Rabbit-Ear
Range that was storming its way eastward. In a few hours it would
travel to the Grand River, which flowed southward through a
straight, mountain-walled valley that was about half a mile wide.
Along the river, occupying about half the width of the valley, was a
picturesque grassy avenue that stretched for miles between ragged
forest-edges.
There was but little wind and, hoping to see the big game that the
flames might drive into the open, I innocently took my stand in the
centre of the grassy stretch directly before the fire. This great
smoky fire-billow, as I viewed it from the heights while I was
descending, was advancing with a formidable crooked front about three
miles across. The left wing was more than a mile in advance of the
active though lagging right one. As I afterward learned, the
difference in speed of the two wings was caused chiefly by topography;
the forest conditions were similar, but the left wing had for some
time been burning up a slope while the right had traveled down one.
Fire burns swiftly up a slope, but slowly down it. Set fire
simultaneously to the top and the bottom of a forest on a steep slope
and the blaze at the bottom will overrun at least nine-tenths of the
area. Flame and the drafts that it creates sweep upward.
Upon a huge lava boulder in the grassy stretch I commanded a view of
more than a mile of the forest-edge and was close to where a game
trail came into it out of the fiery woods. On this burning
forest-border a picturesque, unplanned wild-animal parade passed
before me.
Scattered flakes of ashes were falling when a herd of elk led the
exodus of wild folk from the fire-doomed forest. They came stringing
out of the woods into the open, with both old and young going forward
without confusion and as though headed for a definite place or
pasture. They splashed through a beaver pond without stopping and
continued their way up the river. There was no show of fear, no
suggestion of retreat. They never looked back. Deer straggled out
singly and in groups. It was plain that all were fleeing from danger,
all were excitedly trying to get out of the way of something; and they
did not appear to know where they were going. Apparently they gave
more troubled attention to the roaring, the breath, and the movements
of that fiery, mysterious monster than to the seeking of a place of
permanent safety. In the grassy open, into which the smoke was
beginning to drift and hang, the deer scattered and lingered. At each
roar of the fire they turned hither and thither excitedly to look and
listen. A flock of mountain sheep, in a long, narrow, closely pressed
rank and led by an alert, aggressive bighorn, presented a fine
appearance as it raced into the open. The admirable directness of
these wild animals put them out of the category occupied by tame,
"silly sheep." Without slackening pace they swept across the grassy
valley in a straight line and vanished in the wooded slope beyond. Now
and then a coyote appeared from somewhere and stopped for a time in
the open among the deer; all these wise little wolves were a trifle
nervous, but each had himself well in hand. Glimpses were had of two
stealthy mountain lions, now leaping, now creeping, now swiftly
fleeing.
Bears were the most matter-of-fact fellows in the exodus. Each
loitered in the grass and occasionally looked toward the oncoming
danger. Their actions showed curiosity and anger, but not alarm. Each
duly took notice of the surrounding animals, and one old grizzly even
struck viciously at a snarling coyote. Two black bear cubs, true to
their nature, had a merry romp. Even these serious conditions could
not make them solemn. Each tried to prevent the other from climbing a
tree that stood alone in the open; around this tree they clinched,
cuffed, and rolled about so merrily that the frightened wild folks
were attracted and momentarily forgot their fears. The only birds seen
were some grouse that whirred and sailed by on swift, definite wings;
they were going somewhere.
With subdued and ever-varying roar the fire steadily advanced. It
constantly threw off an upcurling, unbroken cloud of heavy smoke that
hid the flames from view. Now and then a whirl of wind brought a
shower of sparks together with bits of burning bark out over the open
valley.
Just as the flames were reaching the margin of the forest a great
bank of black smoke curled forward and then appeared to fall into the
grassy open. I had just a glimpse of a few fleeing animals, then all
became hot, fiery, and dark. Red flames darted through swirling black
smoke. It was stifling. Leaping into a beaver pond, I lowered my own
sizzling temperature and that of my smoking clothes. The air was too
hot and black for breathing; so I fled, floundering through the water,
down Grand River.
A quarter of a mile took me beyond danger-line and gave me fresh air.
Here the smoke ceased to settle to the earth, but extended in a light
upcurling stratum a few yards above it. Through this smoke the
sunlight came so changed that everything around was magically covered
with a canvas of sepia or rich golden brown. I touched the burned
spots on hands and face with real, though raw, balsam and then plunged
into the burned-over district to explore the extensive ruins of the
fire.
A prairie fire commonly consumes everything to the earth-line and
leaves behind it only a black field. Rarely does a forest fire make
so clean a sweep; generally it burns away the smaller limbs and the
foliage, leaving the tree standing all blackened and bristling. This
fire, like thousands of others, consumed the litter carpet on the
forest floor and the mossy covering of the rocks; it ate the
underbrush, devoured the foliage, charred and burned the limbs, and
blackened the trunks. Behind was a dead forest in a desolate field, a
territory with millions of bristling, mutilated trees, a forest ruin
impressively picturesque and pathetic. From a commanding ridge I
surveyed this ashen desert and its multitude of upright figures all
blurred and lifeless; these stood everywhere,--in the gulches, on the
slopes, on the ridges against the sky,--and they bristled in every
vanishing distance. Over the entire area only a few trees escaped with
their lives; these were isolated in soggy glacier meadows or among
rock fields and probably were defended by friendly air-currents when
the fiery billow rolled over them.
When I entered the burn that afternoon the fallen trees that the fire
had found were in ashes, the trees just killed were smoking, while
the standing dead trees were just beginning to burn freely. That
night these scattered beacons strangely burned among the multitudinous
dead. Close to my camp all through that night several of these fire
columns showered sparks like a fountain, glowed and occasionally
lighted up the scene with flaming torches. Weird and strange in the
night were the groups of silhouetted figures in a shadow-dance between
me and the flickering, heroic torches.
The greater part of the area burned over consisted of mountain-slopes
and ridges that lay between the altitudes of nine thousand and eleven
thousand feet. The forest was made up almost entirely of Engelmann and
Douglas spruces, alpine fir, and flexilis pine. A majority of these
trees were from fifteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, and those
examined were two hundred and fourteen years of age. Over the greater
extent of the burn the trees were tall and crowded, about two thousand
to the acre. As the fire swept over about eighteen thousand acres, the
number of trees that perished must have approximated thirty-six
million.
Fires make the Rocky Mountains still more rocky. This bald fact stuck
out all through this burn and in dozens of others afterward visited.
Most Rocky Mountain fires not only skin off the humus but so cut up
the fleshy soil and so completely destroy the fibrous bindings that
the elements quickly drag much of it from the bones and fling it down
into the stream-channels. Down many summit slopes in these mountains,
where the fires went to bed-rock, the snows and waters still scoot and
scour. The fire damage to some of these steep slopes cannot be
repaired for generations and even centuries. Meantime these disfigured
places will support only a scattered growth of trees and sustain only
a sparse population of animals.
In wandering about I found that the average thickness of
humus--decayed vegetable matter--consumed by this fire was about five
inches. The removal of even these few inches of covering had in many
places exposed boulders and bed-rock. On many shallow-covered steeps
the soil-anchoring roots were consumed and the productive heritage of
ages was left to be the early victim of eager running water and
insatiable gravity.
Probably the part of this burn that was most completely devastated was
a tract of four or five hundred acres in a zone a little below
timber-line. Here stood a heavy forest on solid rock in thirty-two
inches of humus. The tree-roots burned with the humus, and down
crashed the trees into the flames. The work of a thousand years was
undone in a day!
The loss of animal life in this fire probably was not heavy; in five
or six days of exploring I came upon fewer than three dozen fire
victims of all kinds. Among the dead were groundhogs, bobcats,
snowshoe rabbits, and a few grouse. Flying about the waste were
crested jays, gray jays ("camp birds"), and magpies. Coyotes came
early to search for the feast prepared by the fire.
During the second day's exploration on the burn, a grizzly bear and I
came upon two roasted deer in the end of a gulch. I was first to
arrive, so Mr. Grizzly remained at what may have been a respectful
distance, restlessly watching me. With his nearness and impolite
stare I found it very embarrassing to eat alone. However, two days of
fasting had prepared me for this primitive feast; and, knowing that
bears were better than their reputation, I kept him waiting until I
was served. On arising to go, I said, "Come, you may have the
remainder; there is plenty of it."
The fire was followed by clear weather, and for days the light ash lay
deep and undisturbed over the burn. One morning conditions changed and
after a few preliminary whirlwinds a gusty gale set in. In a few
minutes I felt and appeared as though just from an ash-barrel. The
ashen dust-storm was blinding and choking, and I fled for the unburned
heights. So blinding was the flying ash that I was unable to see; and,
to make matters worse, the trees with fire-weakened foundations and
limbs almost severed by flames commenced falling. The limbs were flung
about in a perfectly reckless manner, while the falling trees took a
fiendish delight in crashing down alongside me at the very moment that
the storm was most blinding. Being without nerves and incidentally
almost choked, I ignored the falling bodies and kept going.
Several times I rushed blindly against limb-points and was rudely
thrust aside; and finally I came near walking off into space from the
edge of a crag. After this I sought temporary refuge to the leeward of
a boulder, with the hope that the weakened trees would speedily fall
and end the danger from that source. The ash flew thicker than ever
did gale-blown desert dust; it was impossible to see and so nearly
impossible to breathe that I was quickly driven forth. I have been in
many dangers, but this is the only instance in which I was ever
irritated by Nature's blind forces. At last I made my escape from
them.
From clear though wind-swept heights I long watched the burned area
surrender its slowly accumulated, rich store of plant-food to the
insatiable and all-sweeping wind. By morning, when the wind abated,
the garnered fertility and phosphates of generations were gone, and
the sun cast the shadows of millions of leafless trees upon rock bones
and barren earth. And the waters were still to take their toll.
Of course Nature would at once commence to repair and would again
upbuild upon the foundations left by the fire; such, however, were the
climatic and geological conditions that improving changes would come
but slowly. In a century only a good beginning could be made. For
years the greater portion of the burn would be uninhabitable by bird
or beast; those driven forth by this fire would seek home and food in
the neighboring territory, where this influx of population would
compel interesting readjustments and create bitter strife between the
old wild-folk population and the new.
This fire originated from a camp-fire which a hunting-party had left
burning; it lived three weeks and extended eastward from the
starting-place. Along most of its course it burned to the timber-line
on the left, while rocky ridges, glacier meadows, and rock fields
stopped its extension and determined the side line on the right; it
ran out of the forest and stopped in the grassy Grand River Valley.
Across its course were a number of rocky ridges and grassy gorges
where the fire could have been easily stopped by removing the
scattered trees,--by burning the frail bridges that enabled the fire
to travel from one dense forest to abundant fuel beyond. In a city it
is common to smother a fire with water or acid, but with a forest fire
usually it is best to break its inflammable line of communication by
removing from before it a width of fibrous material. The axe, rake,
hoe, and shovel are the usual fire-fighting tools.
A few yards away from the spot where the fire started I found, freshly
cut in the bark of an aspen, the inscription:--
J S M
YALE 18
A bullet had obliterated the two right-hand figures.
For days I wandered over the mountains, going from fire to smoke and
studying burns new and old. One comparatively level tract had been
fireswept in 1791. On this the soil was good. Lodge-pole pine had
promptly restocked the burn, but these trees were now being smothered
out by a promising growth of Engelmann spruce.
Fifty-seven years before my visit a fire had burned over about four
thousand acres and was brought to a stand by a lake, a rocky ridge,
and a wide fire-line that a snowslide had cleared through the woods.
The surface of the burn was coarse, disintegrated granite and sloped
toward the west, where it was exposed to prevailing high westerly
winds. A few kinnikinnick rugs apparently were the only green things
upon the surface, and only a close examination revealed a few stunted
trees starting. It was almost barren. Erosion was still active; there
were no roots to bind the finer particles together or to anchor them
in place. One of the most striking features of the entire burn was
that the trees killed by the fire fifty-seven years ago were standing
where they died. They had excellent root-anchorage in the shattered
surface, and many of them probably would remain erect for years. The
fire that killed them had been a hot one, and it had burned away most
of the limbs, and had so thoroughly boiled the pitch through the
exterior of the trunk that the wood was in an excellent state of
preservation.
[Illustration: A YELLOW PINE, FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AFTER IT HAD BEEN
KILLED BY FIRE]
Another old burn visited was a small one in an Engelmann spruce forest
on a moderate northern slope. It had been stopped while burning in
very inflammable timber. It is probable that on this occasion either a
rain or snow had saved the surrounding forest. The regrowth had slowly
extended from the margin of the forest to the centre of the burn until
it was restocked.
One morning I noticed two small fires a few miles down the mountain
and went to examine them. Both were two days old, and both had started
from unextinguished camp-fires. One had burned over about an acre and
the other about four times that area. If the smaller had not been
built against an old snag it probably would have gone out within a few
hours after the congressman who built it moved camp. It was
wind-sheltered and the blaze had traveled slowly in all directions and
burned a ragged circle that was about sixty feet across.
The outline of the other blaze was that of a flattened ellipse, like
the orbit of many a wandering comet in the sky. This had gone before
the wind, and the windward end of its orbit closely encircled the
place of origin. The camp-fire nucleus of this blaze had also been
built in the wrong place,--against a fallen log which lay in a deep
bed of decaying needles.
Of course each departing camper should put out his camp-fire. However,
a camp-fire built on a humus-covered forest floor, or by a log, or
against a dead tree, is one that is very difficult to extinguish. With
the best of intentions one may deluge such a fire with water without
destroying its potency. A fire thus secreted appears, like a lie, to
have a spark of immortality in it.
A fire should not be built in contact with substances that will burn,
for such fuel will prolong the fire's life and may lead it far into
the forest. There is but little danger to the forest from a fire that
is built upon rock, earth, sand, or gravel. A fire so built is
isolated and it usually dies an early natural death. Such a fire--one
built in a safe and sane place--is easily extinguished.
The larger of these two incipient fires was burning quietly, and that
night I camped within its orbit. Toward morning the wind began to
blow, this slow-burning surface fire began to leap, and before long it
was a crown fire, traveling rapidly among the tree-tops. It swiftly
expanded into an enormous delta of flame. At noon I looked back and
down upon it from a mountain-top, and it had advanced about three
miles into a primeval forest sea, giving off more smoke than a
volcano.
I went a day's journey and met a big fire that was coming aggressively
forward against the wind. It was burning a crowded, stunted growth of
forest that stood in a deep litter carpet. The smoke, which flowed
freely from it, was distinctly ashen green; this expanded and
maintained in the sky a smoky sheet that was several miles in length.
Before the fire lay a square mile or so of old burn which was covered
with a crowded growth of lodge-pole pine that stood in a deep,
criss-crossed entanglement of fallen fire-killed timber. A thousand or
more of these long, broken dead trees covered each acre with wreckage,
and in this stood upward of five thousand live young ones. This would
make an intensely hot and flame-writhing fire. It appears that a
veteran spruce forest had occupied this burn prior to the fire. The
fire had occurred fifty-seven years before. Trees old and young
testified to the date. In the margin of the living forest on the edge
of the burn were numerous trees that were fire-scarred fifty-seven
years before; the regrowth on the burn was an even-aged fifty-six-year
growth.
That night, as the fire neared the young tree growth, I scaled a rock
ledge to watch it. Before me, and between the fire and the rocks,
stood several veteran lodge-pole pines in a mass of dead-and-down
timber. Each of these trees had an outline like that of a plump
Lombardy poplar. They perished in the most spectacular manner.
Blazing, wind-blown bark set fire to the fallen timber around their
feet; this fire, together with the close, oncoming fire-front, so
heated the needles on the lodge-poles that they gave off a smoky gas;
this was issuing from every top when a rippling rill of purplish flame
ran up one of the trunks. Instantly there was a flash and white
flames flared upward more than one hundred feet, stood gushing for a
few seconds, and then went out completely. The other trees in close
succession followed and flashed up like giant geysers discharging
flame. This discharge was brief, but it was followed by every needle
on the trees glowing and changing to white incandescence, then
vanishing. In a minute these leafless lodge-poles were black and dead.
The fire-front struck and crossed the lodge-pole thicket in a flash;
each tree flared up like a fountain of gas and in a moment a deep,
ragged-edged lake of flame heaved high into the dark, indifferent
night. A general fire of the dead-and-down timber followed, and the
smelter heat of this cut the green trees down, the flames widely,
splendidly illuminating the surrounding mountains and changing a
cloud-filled sky to convulsed, burning lava.
Not a tree was left standing, and every log went to ashes. The burn
was as completely cleared as a fireswept prairie; in places there were
holes in the earth where tree-roots had burned out. This burn was an
ideal place for another lodge-pole growth, and three years later
these pines were growing thereon as thick as wheat in a field. In a
boggy area within the burn an acre or two of aspen sprang up; this
area, however, was much smaller than the one that the fire removed
from the bog. Aspens commonly hold territory and extend their holdings
by sprouting from roots; but over the greater portion of the bog the
fire had either baked or burned the roots, and this small aspen area
marked the wetter part of the bog, that in which the roots had
survived.
After destroying the lodge-pole growth the fire passed on, and the
following day it burned away as a quiet surface fire through a forest
of scattered trees. It crept slowly forward, with a yellow blaze only
a few inches high. Here and there this reddened over a pile of
cone-scales that had been left by a squirrel, or blazed up in a pile
of broken limbs or a fallen tree-top; it consumed the litter mulch and
fertility of the forest floor, but seriously burned only a few trees.
Advancing along the blaze, I came upon a veteran yellow pine that had
received a large pot-hole burn in its instep. As the Western yellow
pine is the best fire-fighter in the conifer family, it was puzzling
to account for this deep burn. On the Rocky Mountains are to be found
many picturesque yellow pines that have a dozen times triumphed over
the greatest enemy of the forest. Once past youth, these trees possess
a thick, corky, asbestos-like bark that defies the average fire. Close
to this injured old fellow was a rock ledge that formed an influential
part of its environment; its sloping surface shed water and fertility
upon its feet; cones, twigs, and trash had also slid down this and
formed an inflammable pile which, in burning, had bored into its
ankle. An examination of its annual rings in the burned hole revealed
the fact that it too had been slightly burned fifty-seven years
before. How long would it be until it was again injured by fire or
until some one again read its records?
Until recently a forest fire continued until stopped by rain or snow,
or until it came to the edge of the forest. I have notes on a forest
fire that lived a fluctuating life of four months. Once a fire
invades an old forest, it is impossible speedily to get rid of it. "It
never goes out," declared an old trapper. The fire will crawl into a
slow-burning log, burrow down into a root, or eat its way beneath a
bed of needles, and give off no sign of its presence. In places such
as these it will hibernate for weeks, despite rain or snow, and
finally some day come forth as ferocious as ever.
About twenty-four hours after the lodge-pole blaze a snow-storm came
to extinguish the surface fire. Two feet of snow--more than three
inches of water--fell. During the storm I was comfortable beneath a
shelving rock, with a fire in front; here I had a meal of wild
raspberries and pine-nuts and reflected concerning the uses of
forests, and wished that every one might better understand and feel
the injustice and the enormous loss caused by forest fires.
During the last fifty years the majority of the Western forest fires
have been set by unextinguished camp-fires, while the majority of the
others were the result of some human carelessness. The number of
preventable forest fires is but little less than the total number.
True, lightning does occasionally set a forest on fire; I have
personal knowledge of a number of such fires, but I have never known
lightning to set fire to a green tree. Remove the tall dead trees from
forests, and the lightning will lose the greater part of its kindling.