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Show OUR ITTlltK JJKl'ENDS O.N 1 1 Forest fires made Palestine a desert. des-ert. In fact, all over the Old World there are desolate waste places that! once were luxuriant gardens until the forests were burned off. If our forests are burned away his age-old tragedy will be repeated here. This is Inevitable. It is just as inevitable as the coming of winter ' and summer. Water Is conserved on I i the water sheds by vegetation. With-1 out vegetation the rain water runsj off in roaring torrents. It not only; goe to waste, bute It wreaks untold damage in the way of winter floods. Some of the worst forest fires in the history of California have been reducing the timber to cinders in the mountains in various parts of Cali-j fornla. Even though these fires be con-j quered, as they doubtless will be, it i would be a miracle if there were not I others to follow this summer. The l most disquieting feature of these particular conflagrations Is the season. sea-son. They have come several weeks i before the normal period of fire dan-! ger. It seems to be a warning of which we should take notice ;that as our population grows the fire danger will extend over a longer period of time. With a due sense of this growing peril and the full knowledge that it is becoming more acute and realizing real-izing fully from the examples of history what must happen if we do not provide some adequate defense, then what is to be done about it? There are obvious measures that suggest themselves, such as closing the forest areas to campers; increasing increas-ing the number of forest rangers; de vising airplane controls; increasing the physical apparatus for fighting the fires. But, after all, these are only pitifully piti-fully inadequate devices. The government gov-ernment of thin State, assisted by the Federal government could assemble the mightiest fire-fighting force the world ever heard of. They could mobilize mo-bilize half the male population of California for the purpose. Still it would not smother t!he danger. The only remedy is in the hands of the man with the cigarette and the camper with the matches. In other words, the only way this State can fight forest, fires is by stopping stop-ping them before they start, so to speak. The only hope of preventing these annual tragedies, which yearly grow more terrible, is in the growth of a publio realization. The public will never be insured against these terrific losses until the wandering camper is made to understand under-stand what it means to himself, personally, per-sonally, when he takes chances with matches. As long as the camper is careful only when he thlnkE a policeman may get him, then the case is hopeless. There arn't enough forest rangers or constables or policemen in the world to watch, all the matches in the mountains. The mountain forests could easily be made safe; that's the pity ot it. But they can only attain this degree of safety when every person who goes into1 the mountains thinks of himself as: a fire warden for the protection pro-tection of his own home, his own city and' hts own interests. If the camper fully realized that he might as "well throw a cigar butt into a powder magazine as into a forest, then there could be no fires. To expect the careless, thoughtless puhlic-at-large to so regard this dancer dan-cer and to take such voluntary per-eautions per-eautions is perhaps visionary. But it can be expected, with some reason, if' the time ever comes when evry visi-i tor In the mountain realizes the di-' rect connection between the tree I crowing there and his own home and ' his own private property. ! There will be some hope of stop-, ping mountain fires when every per-' son going into the forest reserves; realizes that the trees mean not onlv water for his lawn, water for his rinkiner. hnt nlso the nrocneritv pn-i even the existence of the city wherein where-in h mnVfts his living. Tf vou find one who dope not know , him. Snrearl nrremd the Vnowledce and ' mvo the forests. j j And Tn cnvlnc the forest cve 'Southern California from p-ntno- v.nck I 'o the desert. Loil Angeles Tlmei. |