The Safety First Club fights fire

by William Theophilus Nichols

Sam caught up the spade they had used in digging a ditch about the tent. Step noted the action, and gave a shout.

“Hurrah! I know where there’s another—over by the old shed. It’s broken, but it’ll help.”

“Get it!” cried Sam; and away went Step on the run, bounding along with a queer, kangaroo-like gait, which covered ground amazingly.

Tom Orkney and Herman armed themselves with axes. The Shark took a hatchet; the others laid hold upon clubs which might be of use in beating the burning brush. Then they sallied forth for battle.

They had not far to go. Apparently the new fire was close to the tract burned over in the afternoon; but, except in the matter of locality, the situation was entirely changed. The first fire had started when almost a dead calm prevailed; its spread had been slow. Now a strong breeze was blowing, and the line of flame was advancing swiftly. It was sweeping toward the camp, and had gained such headway that Sam, at a glance, realized that the club had its work cut out for it, if it was to save the tent and its contents.

As has been told, the woods near the lake offered plenty of fuel. Sam and his fellows, charging up to the fire, quickly discovered that the beating-out process, which had served well enough in the earlier instance, was no longer effective. Here and there, to be sure, it was possible to check the enemy on a narrow front; but, beyond this, the leaping, yellow tongues continued to gain on either flank.

A spectator, free of anxiety for results, could have found the scene sufficiently picturesque. The wavering illumination played strange tricks with lights and shadows. The moving line of flames suggested a march of torch-bearers, straggling and out of step but always advancing, even if irregularly. Here a tree-trunk stood out in the full glare; there dense, overhanging boughs were like the roof of a cavern. For a dozen yards, perhaps, the fire seemed to frolic in the undergrowth; beyond was a stretch where it raged savagely. The wind sent the smoke swirling through the trees, sometimes in great, rolling volumes, sometimes whipped to streaming ribbons. Blazing twigs and bits of bark sailed away merrily to fall in the thickets and become fresh centers of destruction.

The boys had scant time for such observations, but they did not need to make them to grasp the extent of the danger. Their first attack, as has been related, succeeded in halting the fire for a space of half a dozen rods; but on both sides the yellow tongues advanced, and, indeed, threatened to creep in behind them. Sam marked this peril. He called to Step, who had come up, bringing the broken spade from the old shed; and with him fell back to a comparatively open space well behind the present fighting line—and uncomfortably close to the camp, for that matter.

Sam’s plan was simple, but held promise. It was a rough and ready adaptation of the method often used by farmers in fighting grass and brush fires by plowing furrows across the track of the approaching flames, the freshly turned ground, of course, offering no fuel for them. The boys had no plow, but with the spades, plied desperately, it was possible to dig a shallow trench, which served a double purpose, in that it not only broke the continuity of the carpet of rubbish, but gave chance to widen the safety band by throwing dirt from the excavation over the dead leaves and branches beside it. By great good fortune there was a sort of pathway along which Sam and Step could work, and here they made the dirt fly, while the others did their best to hold back the fire on their immediate front. In this they succeeded, to the extent, at least, of enabling Sam and Step to complete their “safety zone” for a distance which meant a real lessening of the danger to the camp.

Poke, too, had an inspiration. Its source may have been in a quantity of smoke which he had inhaled, and which forced him to fall back, gasping for breath. At all events, as he stood, coughing and rubbing his eyes, a flaming brand fell close beside him. In an instant a new little fire was started. Poke was about to stamp it out, when he took second thought, and permitted it to burn for a moment, not interfering until a patch four or five feet long and half as wide was ablaze. Then in vigorous fashion he plied his club. The result was a patch where fire would not travel again because fire had already ravaged the little space.