OCR Text |
Show FIRE TRAP CREATED The greatest fire trap, known in the history of the United States re-sculted re-sculted from the cyclone which swept the forests of the Olympic Pen insula in the state of Washington on January 29, according to telegraphic telegraph-ic reports received by the United For est Service. "A tremendous tornado," states Acting Forester E. A. Sherman, "blew down the timber estimated at five to eight billion board feet, in a strip 75 miles long and 30 miles wide, one billion board feet of which is within the Olympic National Forest. For-est. If the loss is as great as announced, an-nounced, and latest reports tend to increase rather than to diminish the extent of the catastrophe, this is the greatest disaster ever recorded in the annals of forestry or lumbering." A wind velocity of 132 miles an hour was recorded at the North Head station of the Weather bureau, near the mouth of the Columbia River, which was partly destroyed by the storm. The observer at this station estimates that after his instruments were wrecked, the wind increased in strength to 150 miles an hour. The highest wind velocity ever recorded previous to this date on the Pacific coast was 144 miles an hour at the Port Mendocino Station in California Califor-nia in 18S6. ' "The wind-blown timber." said Mr. Shermon, "which, reports state, lies in a tangled mass over an area of 2,250 square miles, is largely western hemlock and spruce, both of which are subject to rapid decay. Transportation is lacking for much of this region, and it is doubtful if any considerable proportion of the timber can be salvaged unless prom- ...........(..-'..""- pt action is taken. The stand was entinaly through the best winter feeding grounds of these animals. " If fire should ever gain headway in this devistated erea, the most stupendous stu-pendous conflagration ever known in this country would, result. The topography top-ography is very broken and the blow . downs are in part at least known to be 'spotty,' with much fine timber uninjured. Fire would not only destroy de-stroy all these islands of timber, but would seriously endanger a vast surrounding stand. Fifteen billion ft. is exposed in the adjoining part of the Olympic National Forest, besides large amounts of State and prica-te lands. The destruction would be likely like-ly to exceed even that of 1910, the most appauling fire season ever encountered en-countered by the Forest service, when over 4,000,000 acres of National Nation-al Forest land were burned over in the West and 6,500,000,000 board feet of timber valued at nearly $15-000,000 $15-000,000 was lost. To meet this emergency situation, Secretary of Agriculture Meredith, has requested the Secretary of Navy to detail hpdroplanes for an air survey sur-vey of stormswept regions in order that the amount of damage may be determined, since it is impossible to traverse the uprooted forests on the . ground. A request has also' been made to. Secretary of -War that the railroad constructed by the Spruce Production corporation, extending j from Port Angeles to Lake Pleasant, on the peninsula, be equipped with rolling stock and: operated at its max imum capacity. This railroad is the one important line of communication into the devastated area, and will afford means of salvaging a considerable consider-able amount of the down timber. |