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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 1920)
Blazing Hazards Eat Natural Wealth From Forest's Great Heart EK3 5- 3' St'? Jr 4 tj'' ' ,'. '' . "ft. i., S. s , ' "1 i:.iS:iSSg:b::;:;; v mm ' , k- ' - - V , y By Earl C. Brownlee I " y " , ' " $ T THE heels of a man gone mad stark mad from the tor ments of an hour the scorching yellow pine flames of a great forest fire were snapping. As he fled from the spreading furnace he carried a can of kero sene, destined for use in the flame throwers of the fire fighters, but now, seemingly, a tool in the hands of destruction, bent upon aiding the spread of fire and the loss of life. His goal the outpost 'of the fire fighters was almost In sight when suddenly, over the crown of the rise beyond hijn, loomed the mystery force of tiie mountains, the crackling, seething wall of erown fire, against which the power of mere man is a pitiful force. Despair overtook him as he ad vanced toward the burning heart of the great forest, praying for a saving wind that would turn the , course of destruction . and open a pathway to the men who might halt the blaze with the oil he car ried, v At the edge of the timbered fur nace he paused, the intense heat of the flames bearable only be cause his situation was desperate, and desperation is the food of courage. There was no- passage. The names leaped and roared before him and at his sides. Forced back by the heat, the packer from" the "cache" bw death staring at him through eyes of brilliant flame. Escape with his pack of oil was beyond hope, it seemed, as a huge, fire-scarred tree fell almost in his pathway. "Wildly he dropped his pack and ran from the torrent of flame. . . : - But forethought is an important part of valor. What if fire should touch that .can? An oil : explosion ' would add to the terror of the mon ster. . ' ". Suddenly the packer stopped, re traced his steps and regained, his precarious burden from the maw of flames. His hands blistered,-.his throat parched, his eyes sore from thheat that engulfed him he was a man In a mental mase. The backward trail was the only way to freedom. He accepted the chal- - lenge of battle and fled into the arms of doubt again. Tha fir sained ground as he wondered. ; He had- no desire to add hi own life to the fire's toll. He dropped: his pack of oil 'again . and stood:; bewUdereC;while the -r .w v-vi-? '. , THE : is A. blaze jumped forward, lashing to ruin everything in its way. Dazed by heat and mental dis tress, the packer caught up his can and, while distant fire fighters, coming to his recue, watched, he turned and dashed, with the speed of frenzy, into the flames that were eating the heart from one of the finest stands of pine timber in all the vast Northwest. There, headlong on the ground, his oil can intact near at hand, the fire fighters found him when they could get through the flames a madman, unscathed, in -a tiny patch of green the fire providentially had missed embers of the raging menace surrounding him. So goes the story of the forest battlefield, brought to Portland by K. P. Cecil, forest service surveyor, and others who have spent trying hours in the face of the flames whose monuments are the ruined, blackened areas that spread gaunt ly over millions of once impenetra ble acres of the Northwest timber land. The tragedy of the madman was enacted before the eyes of fire fighters in the Wenatchee national forest, where some 10.000 acres of valuable yellow pine were burned over in' the largest forest fire of the closing summer just a little more than a month ago. There Cecil was, in charge of the, commissary that supplied food, men and tools for the fight to quench the flames that ravaged the timbered slopes of Icicle canyon. W. B. Osborne, forest examiner from the Portland office, was fire chief, directing the fight ' Super- -visor A. H. Sylvester, stationed at Leavenworth, Wash., ' was field marshal. The cause for which 175 men fought was not alone the protection of the important Leav enworth watershed, but the protec tion from the very nature that created it of a great, valuable and beautiful forest. Forest rangers had fought Tali-; antly day and night to halt , the . consuming blaze that leaped into' the forest when a brilliant bolt' of lightning struck a forest giant tfnd seered its , sides with fire. .. But rangers, pitifully few and fagged , : by the trials of never ending labor, found their efforts futile. "Send 160 men and equipment: . fire Is spreading." Sylvester wired". when, about August M, the wind changed and. the fire was lifted far s and- wide into the forests, j ... v- That flight, after the organiza. OREGON - SUNDAY -JOURNAL, -PORTLAND,'-; SUNDAYS mm, $ III 'It tion at the forest service headquar ters here had worked emergency plans to perfection, a train bore out of Portland not only men, but . foodstuffs and Implements that would serve the men. Tlere-were axes, shovels, picks, saws, mess equipments, ' blankets, emergency telephone wire, flame throwers and all the paraphernalia that "would aid man and horse in approaching the fire from the only possible di rection up the treacherous can yon. No league of nations in all the world of men can stay the hand of the Menace of the West. No bat tlefield in Flanders could be a more severe testing ground for the cour age of man. nor could it provide a more realistic, hazardous or de structive scene of action than a fc Jl 5 ' I 1 I IS Northwest forest invaded by the fire monster. Those who know declare that no human activity so 'exactly simulates actual warfare as does the forest fire fight. It was, , therefore, the work of soldiers that accomplished, by the next morning, the establish- ment of five camps in Icicle can-' yon camps provided fnsm, 'a cen tral "cache," at the mouth of the break in the mountain ; wall, with ; cooks, packers, foreman, tim,ekeep- erti, flunkies and,- most - Important, . fightera ' - 'y- " "Organixati6n" accounts for Hhe fact that not one second was lost from, the time' the alarm, came in until. fighters were actually at the, scene of battle, armed: for the fray with every modern tool f forest . warfare. -But that was. only, the inarch to the field of action. - ,Th ereafter I came those - trying day . and nights when men. their . 'yourare : and their ' musclea .forced 1 "-S! ' : . ill II II M IIIWI Illl I " .M ( ' V" liter s . N f v- - ! ' I c ? f i ? ir;L, i- ,l I s "A ; f V5 . i I ''V,- X II I '1 3 mm A. 1 " X v J t'- to the, breaking point inl their bat-. tie against the odds . presented by fire in a forest almost impenetra ble. Before them had , advanced two small boys,' carrying upon their backs and stretching - from heavy; reels .fine wire for the creation of : an intercamp and outpost telephone line. Through their work It was possible for each camp to commu nicate; with.' the cache and with ,the supervisor's . of f ice.. From the cache worked 3 a pack era, volunteers who "come' bact" when the ' fire menace ' threatens.' from the lohg . gone day of the range rider, -the cowboy' and the pony express to lend )heir skill and their energies to the conquest. The men in this' particular fire were men' trained In the frontier days of the 'West men who know the .'diamond hrtch". of the 'pack sad: die better : than most' men know better; Uxan-. most: men , know 4 MORNINGS rOpTOBERv 1820. iV-:r irr r nffVVV- ; -.M l fZlh&t ?a-v fv; NjH -V - 4r - ' a ; - i "sllll , .V-vif-,'- c?;5:r' zT& ii'A-'- r:'' ! v i ill 1 V, I: . 1 " ? H A -Mm v - It . 9..'. ..A? l -,smT XtrsHiS'jXBcaifjZRi: ma i r r. i. . a "St. v , the, four-in-hand of the necktie, - , They brought thfir horses, fine animals ' in ' which the Instinct of the 'trail is still strong, here' and there, to fill c out ' the,- quota of horses' (for the, horseflesh of the Northwest is dwindling) . ' . The - packers, had found range, horses , wild . brutes, that v presented many '.problems to ' these' -.well trained-men7 "With these, in the 'midst of the fight, there were pre-' sented many vivid reminders of the wars and of . the West. 6a of these horses is: "caught in tn,e act" in the official picture :berewith. But the human element is the big thtag in' the fight against this . rim. western menace. ; Manpower,' me'rcllessly' taxed by the vital need ' for prompt' and .effective action, is -the quality tfiatV stays Hhe hand of -destruction when the hand can be . stayed..', , n It was si forest ranger. Inured to.YaiitUTneretoo;r IN? , v v w4 JUjxmz&cz? &JiriP$ or&af j&a7z?n& the hardships of the blazing fray, who worked, for 60 consecutive hours in the Icicle canyon fire be fore he could count' his work done and retire to a restless sleep that ' was a nightmare of gnashing flame. Meanwhile he had survived on fre . quent supplies of . steaming strong coffee and the hardiest of foods in limited quantities. The cook's work is never done in a forest fire. He has no fine linen nor dainty china for his tables. In fact', he has no tables, gating is a matter1 'of '"catch - as - catch - can" with .the fire fighter. He is equipped ."with a mess outfit, sim ilar to that which soldiers used, and his meal nous Is set for him. He and' his fellows file up to the field kitchen, and, are served and they, amble , away" to the coolest, shadiest spot they can find to im provise their dining room. But if the demands of the fight keep him on the fife line, overlong his food ' Is still steaming hot on the stove - when he ' comes for ' it. ' The fires are nerer oat in the cook's range and the food is never cold, for, : mayhap, a -relief crew is to be fed at 2 a. m and, perhaps, a straggler - is coming in from the fire lines every few- minutes. ".'' i .The cook in each, camp is sup : piled by pack train from the cache, " which, in the icicle catoyon fire, was five 1 miles, from Leavenworth i the base'' of supplies. The cache holds out .of . reach' of . ' the forest fir a mass of plain food of many TV.'.';-',, for .the animals that play an im portant part in the action against fire. In the Wenatchee fire, which, while the greatest of the last sea son, was representative, fighters stood their ground against the flames for 11 days. The trials of . those days were manifold,; but the desertions from the ranks were few and far between in spite, of the physiaal demands the service made. . Kven the sheep herder, whose two flocks were driven out of the range of fire and escaped beyond the timber . line just in time, re turned to lend his aid in quenchmg the flames that many times defied man and his implements. . The doughty little Englishman, never before out of the lap of lux ury, wearing narrow, thin-soled shoes, stuck to his task by grimly determining not to be downed. But it was a job in which he was successful only after he had slipped and slid over trails and trainees places, wearing blisters on his ten der hands and feet and calloused spots upon the tongue that mould ed weird curses at his failures. He was rescued by those more familiar with the needs of a fire fighter when they supplied him with heavy hob-nailed brogans that held his -feet to the ground. ' -The forest fire- is nature's way of trifling with her own. finest creations. The forest fire fight is the work of man and animal the most exacting, trying, hazardous undertaking In which- brave men engage unless it be, perhaps, the. factual light . of armed men oo- ths it ' , 1 A.V o FvJV I '-V i
