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Show FOREST FIRE Says There Has Been a Needless Waste of Life , and Property Washington. Aug. 26 Gilford Pln-fhot Pln-fhot of the National Conservation association as-sociation and former head of the government gov-ernment forest service. In a statement state-ment Issued this morning, holds that the loss or property aud life in the i cent and present forest fires was unnecessary. The disastrous results, ho tavs, ure traceable to the unpre-p.iredneis unpre-p.iredneis to deal with the fire situation. situa-tion. He scores members of congress who have opiosed appropriation for the proper equipment of forest rangers rang-ers nnd in that connection, names Senator Heybum of Idaho, whose home town. Wallace, suffered serious loss. Senator Carter of Montana and Representative Mondell of Wyoming. The statement follows: "I am proud of the splendid work tho men of the forest service have been doing against the western forest I'rros. Many of them have given their lives to protect the homes of settlers and tho forests on which the prosperity prosper-ity of the western people depend. To my mind their conduct Is beyond all praise. "Forest fires are preventable. It Is n good thing for us to remember at this time that nearly or quite all of the loss suffering and death the fire have cause whs wholly unnecessary. "A Dre In the forest Is the same kind of ti thing as a fire In tho city. There is only one way to fight either. The fire department of every city is organized with the prime Idea of getting get-ting to the fire wheu it Is young. So v. ith the forest fires. The time when to conquer them is before they grow strong. If a forest is equipped with roads, trails, telephone lines and a, reasonable number of men for patrol there i no more likelihood that great fires will be able to get started than there Is that great conflagrations should start In the city of Chicago. They may, of course, but the chances are against it" "The forest pervlce has done wonders wond-ers with Its handful of men. It has pi;t out every year many thousands of small fires, any one of which under favorable cireumslnnces might have developed into conflagrations which lu.uOO men could not stop. This year. b cause of the great drought, there were many fire6 and the rangers were too few. "The lesson from these fires is perfectly per-fectly clear. When u city suffers fiotn a great fire it does not retrench in Its fire department, but strengthens h That Is what the natiou must do In the national forests "The men in congress like Hoy-burn. Hoy-burn. Carter an) Mondell. who hae made light of the efforts of the for-esi for-esi service to prepare itself to prevent pre-vent Just such a calamltv as this, have in effect been fighting on the side of the fires against general welfare. wel-fare. If even u small fraction ot the loss from the present fires had been expended In additional patrol and preventive equipment, sole or perhaps nearly all of the loss would bavo been avoided. ' I believe our people will take the lesson to heart and insist that the settlers and their wives and children, the lumbermen and the miners and the two billion dollars worth of property prop-erty In the national forests shall be equally protected." |