Title: Bulletin (Pennsylvania Department of Forests and Waters), no. 35
Identifier: bulletinpennsylv35penn (find matches)
Year: 1923 (1920s)
Authors: Pennsylvania. Dept. of Forests and Waters
Subjects: Forests and forestry
Publisher: Harrisburg, Pa. : The Department
Contributing Library: Penn State University
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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< a; a < o z o C O LESSON SK THE FOREST FIRE FIEND • Fire destroys not only present and prospective forest growth, but also other values of immediate importance. Fire causes the loss of felled timber. Felled trees represent time and money. The further the process of manufacture is carried the more valuable is the product. Every year thousands of dollars worth of logs, bark, cordwood, ties, poles, posts, and sawed lumber are destroyed. The workman loses his wages; the owner loses the wages paid and the profits; the user must so much the sooner pay a higher price for his wood because the supply is decreased; the Commonwealth at large suflfers because property is destroyed; everybody concerned is made poorer, and no fur- ther wages, taxes, or use are possible. Fire causes a loss to equipment for forest operations, to live stock, to farm crops, to buildings and fences. Every year the,timber operators lose a great amount of property of various kinds by reason of forest fire. Figures on this loss are hard to obtain, but if the value of mills, engines, tools, buildings, and tram roads, completely or partly destroyed by fire were known it would greatly astonish lumbermen themselves. The same thing is true of the loss to farmers and owners of property adjoining woodland. The individual loss may or may not be large in any one in- stance, but when such losses are totaled they soon amount to unbelievable figures. Fire in the forest causes the loss of homes. Not infrequently have forest fires furnished the spark that burned the homes and possessions of families living within or near the forest. Occasionally whole towns have been dangerously threatened, and in some instances completely consumed. The stories of some of the fires in the Northwest are heart- rending and the loss cannot all be included in a tabulated inventory of property destroyed. Fire causes the loss of human lives. The fire which starts from some- one's brush pile or careless act may be the direct cause of snuflFing out any number of human lives, as witness the results of many of the awful conflagrations in the West, in Canada, and occasionally in the East. A few years ago fires in Minnesota and Wisconsin took a large toll of human life and will go down in history among the horrible catastrophies resulting from someone's thoughtlessness. But here again the loss can- not be counted in dollars. Fire destroys game and fish. Spring fires, especially, are fatal to young animals of all kinds, and many eggs of game birds are destroyed. Not infrequently the water of some of the small streams has been heated sufficiently to kill fish. By destroving the factor which largely regulates the steady flow of streams and by making the banks of streams bare of their natural protection fish life is seriously affected. A Secretary of the Pennsylvania Game Commission has stated that forest fires do more to destroy game than all other forces put together. A Pennsylvania Fish Commissioner has stated that the native brook trout of the East is almost a thing of the past because the \n aters are too warm for it. The California trout is being planted instead. 19

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