“Surface fires, as the name implies, burn only the loose debris on top of the ground,” he explained. “That’s the type of thing we encountered here. Sometimes, the fire eats down into the layer of undecomposed material on the forest floor, and then you have a ground fire. The most difficult of all are those which spread into the trees, or the crown fires.”
“How do you suppose this one started?” Miss Ward asked the ranger.
“That’s hard to say,” he replied.
Lowell Diethelm, the ranger Judy had met in the village the previous evening, now tramped into the kitchen. He had overheard Miss Ward’s question and the reply.
“It’s plain enough how the fire started,” he commented, pouring himself a mug of coffee.
“How?” Judy asked.
“Someone from this camp has been careless about fire.”
A stunned silence followed the observation. Then, almost as a unit, the Girl Scouts began to protest.
“I don’t think that’s fair to say!” exclaimed Kathleen indignantly. “Do you have any proof that the fire was started by anyone in this camp?”
“No proof,” the ranger admitted. “Just circumstantial evidence. You girls had a cook-out last night?”