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Show , 1 v BUILD YOUR FUTURE j A IN UTAH VALLEY J fKffr watchers been on the job, the recent re-cent disaster might have been stopped with little appreciable loss. Of course the training and employment of such forest guardians guard-ians would cost money, but the loss incurred by the Provo Canyon Can-yon fire would pay the bill of such a program for many years to come. Water is the breath of life in Utah Valley. If the natural flora of our mountain watersheds is destroyed, our beautiful valley will be reduced to an arid waste. Bad as the recent fire has been, it may prove to e a blessing if it awakens us to the relalization that we are all sitting on a powder keg. Our forests at this time of year are teeming with campers. Some of them are responsible and careful; care-ful; others irresponsible and careless. care-less. There is no method yet devised de-vised by means of which brains may be inserted in the head of a moron. Such being the case, eternal eter-nal vigilance is the only answer. Authorities who bear the responsibility respon-sibility of protecting the public domain might well ponder the best methods of preventing disasters of this kind. Problems more vexing than this have yielded to-constructive thinking. Karl Banks The recent halocaust in Provo Canyon brings forcibly to mind again the vital need for precaution, precau-tion, intelligence, sense of responsibility respon-sibility and alertness in the care of our public domain. Whether the fire was started maliciously or carelessly, the results are the same, and the true cause of the disaster may never be known. The cause is all water under the bridge now, but the results will be felt for many years to come. Forest cover does not grow in a day, especially es-pecially on steep barren hillsides such as the consuming flames have left. Snowslides, landslides, contaminated con-taminated water supplies, and diminished dim-inished storage water may be expected ex-pected for many years to come. If any lesson is to be learned from the conflagration which rendered ren-dered sterile some thousand acres of forest land, it might be that eternal vigilance and stimulated public opinion are the only remedy. rem-edy. No fire is big when it starts and had adequately trained fire- |