careful loggers send a man back to each donkey-setting between
supper and bedtime to look for possible fires that were not seen
when the crew left. Many keep a watchman on the rounds all night.

Railroad rights of way can usually be kept cleaned and burned at
a cost far less than that of otherwise frequent shutdowns of the
entire camp to fight fire or rebuild bridges, to say nothing of
loss of timber.

PATROL

The best way to prevent fire is to prevent it. Putting out fires
already started is better than letting them burn, but as the real
foundation of a protective system it is about like lowering a lifeboat
after the ship has struck. Only by patrol can the incipient spark
or camp fire be extinguished before it becomes a forest fire that
has to be fought, taking hours or days instead of minutes. One
patrolman can stop 100 incipient fires easier than 100 men can
stop one big fire. Fires in the forest may never be wholly averted,
but patrol will prevent them from becoming "forest fires."

This is why the progressive lumberman no longer waits till forced
to layoff his crew to fight, spending in a day or two a patrolman's
salary for a season, shutting down his road and mill for lack of
logs, and perhaps in spite of all losing several thousand dollars'
worth of timber and equipment. It is also why the progressive
non-operating owner no longer considers fire loss the act of God,
to be reckoned as an investment risk of several per cent. The man
who does not patrol his timber nowadays is like a millman who hires
no watchman, has no hose or sprinkler equipment, and carries no