Washington County News | 1927-07-28 | Page 9 | Lightning versus Man-Caused Fires

LIGHTNING VERSUS MAN-CAUSED FIRES Out of 1203 forest fires in Idaho last year, handled by the forest service, serv-ice, 807 wer kept within a quarter of an acre. While lightning caused 905 of these fires, it might well be said that lightning is a gentleman. It always al-ways gives a warning and the forest service tells its men not to be too proud or too slow to take advantage of this warning, as lightning shows no mercy, and forest officers are instructed in-structed to be ready to strike quickly and strike hard. Fires caused by man, however, are preceded by no such warning as that given by lightning. light-ning. There is no thunder nor display dis-play of clouds preceding man-caused fires. While the forest fire protective force receives no warnings of such fires, nevertheless the public in general has received plenty ol warning regarding the results of their carelessness and the man-caused fires are a pretty simple problem for the individual concerned con-cerned to handle if he will. In Utah 62 out of a total of 95 fires last year were man-caused.