IS—Lancaster Farming, Saturday. April 8, 1972
Help Stamp Out Wildfires In Your Spring Cleanup
Forest fires raging out of
control. Wildfires are an
awesome and terrifying sight.
They have aroused fear in the
hearts of men from earliest
times The damage they do is
appalling.
Forest wildfires spoil natural
beauty and lower the quality of
our environment by destroying
countless graceful trees, spoiling
lovely scenic vistas, and adding
to the pollution of the coun
tryside They make forest
recreation areas, roads, streams,
and trails less attractive to
campers and picnickers, and to
boating, swimming, hiking, and
skiing enthusiasts
They contribute to serious
erosion and floods which waste
the richness of the earth. With no
bed of leaves and mulch to absorb
rainfall, the water runs quickly
over the bare ground; soil and
ash is then washed into streams,
rivers, lakes and community
reservoirs, killing many fish As
lakes and reservoirs fill up with
silt they hold less water In some
cases reservoirs fill up with silt m
a few years making them useless
for community water supplies
When rams are heavy in burned
over areas, rivers fill quickly and
banks overflow. Damage to
communities and farmlands
downstream is often severe and
many times the nation shares in
the cost of rehabilitation
Raging wildfires can be very
damaging to wild animals and
birds.
Forest wildfires destroy vast
amounts of valuable timber. This
timber is needed to- build our
furniture, to supply us with paper
of all kinds, from grocery bags to
newspapers to stationery to
facial tissues, and for many other
products for home and indistry. A
single wild fire in Oregon in 1933
destroyed more timber than was
harvested in the entire country
for a whole year. Wildfires kill
the young trees, the timber for
tomorrow. They often change a
forest of valuable trees into a
forest of inferior trees, or weed
trees.
Repeated fires often prevent a
new forest from starting, leaving
large black, scarred, barren
areas which must be planted by
man at great cost. In the U.S. in
1969 there there 100,000 wildfires
that burned 6.7 million acres.
That is about 10,500 square miles,
or an area as large as the State of
Maryland, or New Jersey and
Delaware combined.
This wasteful burning goes on
every year. What can we do about
it’ The best way to keep forest
fire damage low is to keep fires
from getting started How do we
keep forest fires from getting
started’ First, let’s see how fires
get started and then what is being
done about them, and finally
what can each one of us do to
prevent them.
There are two basic sources of
forest wildfires, as a matter of
fact, of all fires. One is nature,
usually by lightning. Second is
man. In this part of the country,
especially Southeastern Penn
sylvania, lightning is a relatively
insignificant source of wildfire.
However, number two, or man, of
which we are very personally
familiar, starts nine out of ten of
our forest fires. He starts them
intentionally and accidently.
There are different acts of
starting fires. Let us examine
these acts. One is incendiary or
those that are deliberately set to
bum and spreads to the property
of others. More wildfires were
due to this cause than any other,
sad to say, in the State of Penn
sylvania in 1971. Some people are
ignorant to the fact that setting
fires intentionally does man
harm. However, it still continues.
Another act is smoking.
Careless smokers set fire to
approximately 350,000 square
miles of forests every year.
Campfires started by campers,
hikers, hunters, fishermen and
others that use the forests and
great outdoors for recreation can
very easily eliminate the area in
which they wish to recreate, if
they are not careful.
Equipment users - These are
fires started by man through use
of his equipment, such as trucks,
cars, farm machinery, logging
equipment, or mini-bikes. These
things start fires like man and his
carelessness.
A very important cause of fires
started by man is the debris
burner This was the second
major cause of fires in
Southeastern Pennsylvania in
1971. The debris burner is a
person trying to get rid of all the
material they have stored over
the winter and accumulated
trash. They take it ah out to the
rear of the house, put it in a
barrel without a cover, light the
fire, and forget it.
How can we prevent fires?
Since man is the cause of most
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wildfires, everyone of us has a
part in preventing them. We can
be more careful ourselves and we
can influence others to use more
care with fire. Debris burning, as
mentioned before, is something
many of us do and can be more
careful about. Some rules for
debis burning are:
Never bum trash outside in dry
weather or on windy days.
Always have plenty of
available help, tools and water
nearby.
Magnesium
Oxide
Calcium
Oxide
Don’t burn debris near
buildings, woods, fields, or dry
grass.
Brun only on bare ground or in
a metal container. Clear
everything away down to bare
ground for ten feet in all direc
tions before burning.
It is usually safer to burn late in
the dat. You should always check
first to see if your local or State
laws require a permit to bum
brush, debris, etc., and get a
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