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Show Host of Small Fires Do More Damage Than the Few Great Ones A tough forest fire is a terrible enemy to combat. It sometimes attacks at-tacks on a front from one to more than twenty miles in width. It can sweep forward at a speed to overtake over-take a man on horseback. It develops de-velops a heat that can ignite a stump more than 100 yards removed from any flames. It stirs air currents to the speed of a tornado. The great fcrest fires, the ones we read about, are the more spectacular spectacu-lar and do terrific damage but there are 10,000 times as many little fires, which we seldom hear about, and the sum total of their damage is the greater of the two. Anyhow, every big fire was little when it started. start-ed. Who starts them? The public accounts for approximately 98 per cent of all forest fires, according to the official records of the forest service, careless tossing of burning matches or tobacco is described as the most frequent cause. Incendi-arists Incendi-arists people who start Ores for a thrill or for malice rank second. Approximately 61,000 men are kept constantly subject to fire fight-ing fight-ing duty today. Of these, some 52 500 are responsible to state foresters forest-ers and administrators of private ly owned timberlands. and about 9.000 are members of the federal land administrative agencies which include the forest service. In spi! 1 of their efforts, however, fire annually annu-ally festroys as much as 800.UOO HW cubW feet of timber. |