Government Forest Work 29 
A small fire may spread into a conflagration, and 
fires, matches, and burning tobacco should be used as 
carefully in the forest as they are in the home. Care- 
lessness in this respect may mean the loss of lives, 
homes, stock, and forage, and of a vast amount of 
timber which belongs equally to all citizens. 
Fires may start in a region remote from supplies 
and water and reach vast proportions before a party 
of fire fighters can get to the scene, no matter how 
promptly the start is made. By far the best plan, 
therefore, is to prevent fires rather than to depend 
upon fighting them once they start. This subject has 
been given the most earnest attention by the Forest 
Service. During the danger season the main attention 
of forest supervisors and rangers is devoted to prevent~ 
ing fires and to catching while still small those that do 
start. Extra men are employed, the forests are sys- 
tematically patrolled, and a careful lookout is main- 
tained from high points. Roads and trails are being 
built so that all parts of the forests may be quickly 
reached. Tools and food for fire fighters are stored at 
convenient places. The ranger stations and lookouts 
are connected with the offices of the supervisors by 
telephone, so that men may be quickly assembled to 
fight fires which the patrolmen can not subdue alone. 
Through arrangement with the Weather Bureau 
forecasts of ‘forest fire weather’ are sent to forest 
officers in order that, when critical conditions are indi- 
cated, special preparation can be made to meet them. 
During recent fire seasons airplanes have been used 
in fire control. When fires get large a reconnaissance 
from the air is a very useful method of obtaining desired 
information. The planes are also used for confirma- 
tion of report of fires concerning which it is difficult to 
get reliable information from other sources and for 
flights after lightning storms and when the atmosphere 
is too smoky for the effective detection of fire by ob- 
servers on the ground. In 1925 the planes were used 
for the first time for transporting materials and drop- 
ping them where needed on the actual fire lines. 
The cooperation of all forest users is earnestly sought 
in the work of preventing and controlling fire by