Forest fires led me to abandon the most nearly ideal journey through the wilds I had ever embarked upon, but the conflagrations that took me aside filled a series of my days and nights with wild, fiery exhibitions and stirring experiences. It was early September and I had started southward along the crest of the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains in northern Colorado. All autumn was to be mine and upon this alpine skyline I was to saunter southward, possibly to the land of cactus and mirage. Not being commanded by either the calendar or the compass, no day was to be marred by hurrying. I was just to linger and read all the nature stories in the heights that I could comprehend or enjoy. From my starting-place, twelve thousand feet above the tides, miles of continental slopes could be seen that sent their streams east and west to the two far-off seas. With many a loitering advance, with[Pg 140] many a glad going back, intense days were lived. After two great weeks I climbed off the treeless heights and went down into the woods to watch and learn the deadly and dramatic ways of forest fires.
A FOREST FIRE ON THE GRAND RIVER A FOREST FIRE ON THE GRAND RIVER
This revolution in plans was brought about by the view from amid the broken granite on the summit of Long\'s Peak. Far below and far away the magnificent mountain distances reposed in the autumn sunshine. The dark crags, snowy summits, light-tipped peaks, bright lakes, purple forests traced with silver streams and groves of aspen,—all fused and faded away in the golden haze. But these splendid scenes were being blurred and blotted out by the smoke of a dozen or more forest fires.
Little realizing that for six weeks I was to hesitate on fire-threatened heights and hurry through smoke-filled forests, I took a good look at the destruction from afar and then hastened toward the nearest fire-front. This was a smoke-clouded blaze on the Rabbit-Ear Range that was storming its way eastward. In a few hours it would travel to the Grand River, which [Pg 141] flowed southward through a straight, mountain-walled valley that was about half a mile wide. Along the river, occupying about half the width of the valley, was a picturesque grassy avenue that stretched for miles between ragged forest-edges.
There was but little wind and, hoping to see the big game that the flames might drive into the open, I innocently took my stand in the centre of the grassy stretch directly before the fire. This great smoky fire-billow, as I viewed it from the heights while I was descending, was advancing with a formidable crooked front about three miles across. The left wing was more than a mile in advance of the active though lagging right one. As I afterward learned, the difference in speed of the two wings was caused chiefly by topography; the forest conditions were similar, but the left wing had for some time been burning up a slope while the right had traveled down one. Fire burns swiftly up a slope, but slowly down it. Set fire simultaneously to the top and the bottom of a forest on a steep slope and the blaze at the bottom will[Pg 142] overrun at least nine-tenths of the area. Flame and the drafts that it creates sweep upward.
Upon a huge lava boulder in the grassy stretch I commanded a view of more than a mile of the forest-edge and was close to where a game trail came into it out of the fiery woods. On this burning forest-border a picturesque, unplanned wild-animal parade passed before me.
Scattered flakes of ashes were falling when a herd of elk led the exodus of wild folk from the fire-doomed forest. They came stringing out of the woods into the open, with both old and young going forward without confusion and as though headed for a definite place or pasture. They splashed through a beaver pond without stopping and continued their way up the river. There was no show of fear, no suggestion of retreat. They never looked back. Deer straggled out singly and in groups. It was plain that all were fleeing from danger, all were excitedly trying to get out of the way of something; and they did not appear to know where they were going. Apparently they gave more troubled attention to the roaring, the breath, and the[Pg 143] movements of that fiery, mysterious monster than to the seeking of a place of permanent safety. In the grassy open, into which the smoke was beginning to drift and hang, the deer scattered and lingered. At each roar of the fire they turned hither and thither excitedly to look and listen. A flock of mountain sheep, in a long, narrow, closely pressed rank and led by an alert, aggressive bighorn, presented a fine appearance as it raced into the open. The admirable directness of these wild animals put them out of the category occupied by tame, "silly sheep." Without slackening pace they swept across the grassy valley in a straight line and vanished in the wooded slope beyond. Now and then a coyote appeared from somewhere and stopped for a time in the open among the deer; all these wise little wolves were a trifle nervous, but each had himself well in hand. Glimpses were had of two stealthy mountain lions, now leaping, now creeping, now swiftly fleeing.
Bears were the most matter-of-fact fellows in the exodus. Each loitered in the grass and[Pg 144] occasionally looked toward the oncoming danger. Their actions showed curiosity and anger, but not alarm. Each duly took notice of the surrounding animals, and one old grizzly even struck viciously at a snarling coyote. Two black bear cubs, true to their nature, had a merry romp. Even these serious conditions could not make them solemn. Each tried to prevent the other from climbing a tree that stood alone in the open; around this tree they clinched, cuffed, and rolled about so merrily that the frightened wild folks were attracted and momentarily forgot their fears. The only birds seen were some grouse that whirred and sailed by on swift, definite wings; they were going somewhere.
With subdued and ever-varying roar the fire steadily advanced. It constantly threw off an upcurling, unbroken cloud of heavy smoke that hid the flames from view. Now and then a whirl of wind brought a shower of sparks together with bits of burning bark out over the open valley.
Just as the flames were reaching the margin[Pg 145] of the forest a great bank of black smoke curled forward and then appeared to fall into the grassy open. I had just a glimpse of a few fleeing animals, then all became hot, fiery, and dark. Red flames darted through swirling black smoke. It was stifling. Leaping into a beaver pond, I lowered my own sizzling temperature and that of my smoking clothes. The air was too hot and black for breathing; so I fled, floundering through the water, down Grand River.
A quarter of a mile took me beyond danger-line and gave me fresh air. Here the smoke ceased to settle to the earth, but extended in a light upcurling stratum a few yards above it. Through this smoke the sunlight came so changed that everything around was magically covered with a canvas of sepia or rich golden brown. I touched the burned spots on hands and face with real, though raw, balsam and then plunged into the burned-over district to explore the extensive ruins of the fire.
A prairie fire commonly consumes everything to the earth-line and leaves behind it only a black field. Rarely does a forest fire make so[Pg 146] clean a sweep; generally it burns away the smaller limbs and the foliage, leaving the tree standing all blackened and bristling. This fire, like thousands of others, consumed the litter carpet on the forest floor and the mossy covering of the rocks; it ate the underbrush, devoured the foliage, charred and burned the limbs, and blackened the trunks. Behind was a dead forest in a desolate field, a territory with millions of bristling, mutilated trees, a forest ruin impressively picturesque and pathetic. From a commanding ridge I surveyed this ashen desert and its multitude of upright figures all blurred and lifeless; these stood everywhere,—in the gulches, on the slopes, on the ridges against the sky,—and they bristled in every vanishing distance. Over the entire area only a few trees escaped with their lives; these were isolated in soggy glacier meadows or among rock fields and probably were defended by friendly air-currents when the fiery billow rolled over them.
When I entered the burn that afternoon the fallen trees that the fire had found were in ashes, the trees just killed were smoking, while the[Pg 147] standing dead trees were just beginning to burn freely. That night these scattered beacons strangely burned among the multitudinous dead. Close to my camp all through that night several of these fire columns showered sparks like a fountain, glowed and occasionally lighted up the scene with flaming torches. Weird and strange in the night were the groups of silhouetted figures in a shadow-dance between me and the flickering, heroic torches.
The greater part of the area burned over consisted of mountain-slopes and ridges that lay between the altitudes of nine thousand and eleven thousand feet. The forest was made up almost entirely of Engelmann and Douglas spruces, alpine fir, and flexilis pine. A majority of these trees were from fifteen to twenty-four inches in diameter, and those examined were two hundred and fourteen years of age. Over the greater extent of the burn the trees were tall and crowded, about two thousand to the acre. As the fire swept over about eighteen thousand acres, the number of trees that perished must have approximated thirty-six million.[Pg 148]
Fires make the Rocky Mountains still more rocky. This bald fact stuck out all through this burn and in dozens of others afterward visited. Most Rocky Mountain fires not only skin off the humus but so cut up the fleshy soil and so completely destroy the fibrous bindings that the elements quickly drag much of it from the bones and fling it down into the stream-channels. Down many summit slopes in these mountains, where the fires went to bed-rock, the snows and waters still scoot and scour. The fire damage to some of these steep slopes cannot be repaired for generations and even centuries. Meantime these disfigured places will support only a scattered growth of trees and sustain only a sparse population of animals.
In wandering about I found that the average thickness of humus—decayed vegetable matter—consumed by this fire was about five inches. The removal of even these few inches of covering had in many places exposed boulders and bed-rock. On many shallow-covered steeps the soil-anchoring roots were consumed and the productive heritage of ages was left to[Pg 149] be the early victim of eager running water and insatiable gravity.
Probably the part of this burn that was most completely devastated was a tract of four or five hundred acres in a zone a little below timber-line. Here stood a heavy forest on solid rock in thirty-two inches of humus. The tree-roots burned with the humus, and down crashed the trees into the flames. The work of a thousand years was undone in a day!
The loss of animal life in this fire probably was not heavy; in five or six days of exploring I came upon fewer than three dozen fire victims of all kinds. Among the dead were groundhogs, bobcats, snowshoe rabbits, and a few grouse. Flying about the waste were crested jays, gray jays ("camp birds"), and magpies. Coyotes came early to search for the feast prepared by the fire.
During the second day\'s exploration on the burn, a grizzly bear and I came upon two roasted deer in the end of a gulch. I was first to arrive, so Mr. Grizzly remained at what may have been a respectful distance, restlessly watching me.[Pg 150] With his nearness and impolite stare I found it very embarrassing to eat alone. However, two days of fasting had prepared me for this primitive feast; and, knowing that bears were better than their reputation, I kept him waiting until I was served. On arising to go, I said, "Come, you may have the remainder; there is plenty of it."
The fire was followed by clear weather, and for days the light ash lay deep and undisturbed over the burn. One morning conditions changed and after a few preliminary whirlwinds a gusty gale set in. In a few minutes I felt and appeared as though just from an ash-barrel. The ashen dust-storm was blinding and choking, and I fled for the unburned heights. So blinding was the flying ash that I was unable to see; and, to make matters worse, the trees with fire-weakened foundations and limbs almost severed by flames commenced falling. The limbs were flung about in a perfectly reckless manner, while the falling trees took a fiendish delight in crashing down alongside me at the very moment that the storm was most blinding. Being without nerves and[Pg 151] incidentally almost choked, I ignored the falling bodies and kept going.
Several times I rushed blindly against limb-points and was rudely thrust aside; and finally I came near walking off into space from the edge of a crag. After this I sought temporary refuge to the leeward of a boulder, with the hope that the weakened trees would speedily fall and end the danger from that source. The ash flew thicker than ever did gale-blown desert dust; it was impossible to see and so nearly impossible to breathe that I was quickly driven forth. I have been in many dangers, but this is the only instance in which I was ever irritated by Nature\'s blind forces. At last I made my escape from them.
From clear though wind-swept heights I long watched the burned area surrender its slowly accumulated, rich store of plant-food to the insatiable and all-sweeping wind. By morning, when the wind abated, the garnered fertility and phosphates of generations were gone, and the sun cast the shadows of millions of leafless trees upon rock bones and barren earth. And the waters were still to take their toll.[Pg 152]
Of course Nature would at once commence to repair and would again upbuild upon the foundations left by the fire; such, however, were the climatic and geological conditions that improving changes would come but slowly. In a century only a good beginning could be made. For years the greater portion of the burn would be uninhabitable by bird or beast; those driven forth by this fire would seek home and food in the neighboring territory, where this influx of population would compel interesting readjustments and create bitter strife between the old wild-folk population and the new.
This fire originated from a camp-fire which a hunting-party had left burning; it lived three weeks and extended eastward from the starting-place. Along most of its course it burned to the timber-line on the left, while rocky ridges, glacier meadows, and rock fields stopped its extension and determined the side line on the right; it ran out of the forest and stopped in the grassy Grand River Valley. Across its course were a number of rocky ridges and grassy gorges where the fire could have been easily[Pg 153] stopped by removing the scattered trees,—by burning the frail bridges that enabled the fire to travel from one dense forest to abundant fuel beyond. In a city it is common to smother a fire with water or acid, but with a forest fire usually it is best to break its inflammable line of communication by removing from before it a width of fibrous material. The axe, rake, hoe, and shovel are the usual fire-fighting tools.
A few yards away from the spot where the fire started I found, freshly cut in the bark of an aspen, the inscription:—
J S M
Yale 18
A bullet had obliterated the two right-hand figures.
For days I wandered over the mountains, going from fire to smoke and studying burns new and old. One comparatively level tract had been fireswept in 1791. On this the soil was good. Lodge-pole pine had promptly restocked the burn, but these trees were now being smothered out by a promising growth of Engelmann spruce.[Pg 154]
A YELLOW PINE, FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AFTER IT HAD BEEN KILLED BY FIRE A YELLOW PINE, FORTY-SEVEN YEARS AFTER IT HAD BEEN KILLED BY FIRE
Fifty-seven years before my visit a fire had burned over about four thousand acres and was brought to a stand by a lake, a rocky ridge, and a wide fire-line that a snowslide had cleared through the woods. The surface of the burn was coarse, disintegrated granite and sloped toward the west, where it was exposed to prevailing high westerly winds. A few kinnikinnick rugs apparently were the only green things upon the surface, and only a close examination revealed a few stunted trees starting. It was almost barren. Erosion was still active; there were no roots to bind the finer particles together or to anchor them in place. One of the most striking features of the entire burn was that the trees killed by the fire fifty-seven years ago were standing where they died. They had excellent root-anchorage in the shattered surface, and many of them probably would remain erect for years. The fire that killed them had been a hot one, and it had burned away most of the limbs, and had so thoroughly boiled the pitch through the exterior of the trunk that the wood was in an e............