“Well, I don’t suppose it could be called exactly comfortable to have your hands blistered and your hair singed and not know whether the next minute you’re going to be alive or dead,” he admitted. “But after all there’s an excitement in fighting a fire and a sense of victory when you get the better of it that pays for all the work and pain. It’s a funny thing that when you once get into the work you don’t want to leave it. Once a forester always a forester seems to be the rule. I suppose the call of the woods to the forest ranger is like the call of the sea to the sailor.”
“I guess there’ll always be fires, so that you’ll never get out of a job,” suggested Frank Brandon.
“Right you are,” replied Mr. Bentley. “Do you know, that with all the advances that have been made in guarding against fires, more than three hundred thousand acres of woodland were burned over last year? Why, that’s equal to a strip ten miles wide reaching from New York City to Denver. The timber lost in one year would build homes for a city of four hundred thousand people.”
A gasp of astonishment came from every one of the boys.
“Did you ever!”
“Some loss!”
“What a shame to lose so much valuable timber!”
“Just what I say. Why can’t people be more careful with fire?”
“Those are mighty big figures,” commented Frank Brandon. “What are the causes of so many fires?”
“There’s a host of causes,” replied Mr. Bentley. “But most fires could be avoided. In one district last year, nearly forty per cent. of the fires were caused by smokers. Campers knock the sparks out of their pipes and throw away half smoked cigarettes. They fall in a little heap of brushwood that perhaps is as dry as tinder, smoulder there for a time and a little later break out into flames. The Government is doing all it can by signs and warnings to curb the evil, but as long as there are careless and inconsiderate people there will be forest fires.