“Then too, lightning is responsible for many fires. Often that brings its own remedy with it, for lightning usually occurs during a rain storm, and the water that comes down drowns out the fire that the lightning starts. But it doesn’t always work that way.
“Sometimes it’s a meteor that does the damage. Those big stones are sometimes white hot when they strike the ground, and if that ground happens to be in a thick wood, a fire is almost inevitable. Of course it isn’t often that that happens, but when it does, it has to be reckoned with, believe me!
“I’ve known of many fires that have been started by these fire balloons that you see sometimes drifting along the sky especially around the Fourth of July. It happens sometimes that the inflammable material in the balloons has not completely burned itself out when the balloon reaches the ground. If this happens in a dry spot in the woods, a fire is not only likely, but is a practical certainty.
“You’d think it strange perhaps,” the ranger went on, as he looked with a smile about the room, “if I told you that sleet and snow are responsible for many forest fires.”
“Sleet and snow!” exclaimed Bob. “Why, I should think it would be just the other way around and that they’d help put out fires instead of causing them.”
“That would be the natural supposition,” conceded Mr. Bentley. “What I mean is this. Whenever the winter has been very severe and there have been heavy storms of sleet and snow, the trunk and branches get loaded with tons and tons of ice. As a fierce gale often accompanies the storm, the heavily burdened trees are blown down. As the summer comes on, the dead tree and branches dry out, and all they need is a spark to set them going. If those dead masses of brushwood had been standing, living trees, the spark would have had nothing to feed upon and would have died out harmlessly.”
“Even nature seems in league against you, as well as the carelessness of men,” remarked Mr. Brandon.
“That’s what,” agreed Mr. Payne Bentley. “And there are times when one is tempted to grow disheartened. But great as the losses are, they’re not so heavy as they used to be. We’re gradually getting the best of the fire fiend, although at times progress seems slow. It’s only when you compare conditions of to-day with what they were before the Government woke up that you realize what great strides have been made in the protection of the forests.
“Of course, the most important thing in limiting the fire loss is the education of the public. They’ve got to cooperate and help stop the tremendous waste. When you realize that in the last five years there have been one hundred and sixty thousand forest fires in the United States and that at least eighty per cent. of these were preventable you see who’s responsible. The public is starting more fires than the small force of forest rangers can put out. Of course one way would be to forbid the public to camp in or travel through the national forests during the dry season. But that would be a hardship when you realize that more than five million people enjoyed their outings in those forests last year. Yet Canada has had to forbid it, and the United States may have to come to the same thing if tourists and campers will persist in leaving the burning embers of their campfires behind them and throwing from traveling automobiles lighted cigars into the brushwood.”
“What do you chiefly rely on in your work?” asked Frank Brandon.