Introduction
by Tom Forster
Imagine fighting a forest fire in Marin in 1899. Just reporting the fire was a challenge. Who and how do you call for help? No two-way radios or 911 to dial, no cell signals or smartphones, few fire departments to summon, and the Mt. Tam fire lookout did not exist. How to get there to fight the fire? We can't go jump in our air conditioned Type III. No motorized fire trucks yet in Marin, that would not happen for another ten years. Our options are to get there on horseback, maybe with wagons, or, most likely, on foot. Perhaps using the railroad was an option to transport men and supplies, if the fire was nearby the few rail lines.
Call for mutual aid? Yes, sort of, but that usually just meant citizens coming from the various towns and maybe, just maybe, an organized fire department would eventually arrive - there were only a few in existence at that time. Protective clothing? Fire shelters? No, not invented yet. Backpack water pumps? Pulaski tools? Chainsaws? Drip Torches? Sorry, not around yet either. Can't call for air attack, no planes yet that were doing such a thing. That would not happen until the late 1950's. Handcrews? Nope, just able bodied men and women and kids from the various small communities. Marin's population at that time was roughly 15,000 people widely spread out over the region.
How about a fire camp with food vendors, re-hab, showers, supply stations, and wireless? Sorry, not there yet either. What if you were burned while fighting the fire? Any ambulances or line EMT's to call, Medics? Burn Centers? Sorry, many decades before they would be available. Call the Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry (later named Cal Fire), or the Tamalpais Forest Fire District? Not an option, none of these organizations were in existence yet. You could call for the Army to send troops. Call for an Incident Management Team? This management tool is also far way in the future.
With most of today's resources unavailable, you might imagine therefore that it was a poorly managed 'firefight.' Think again. The methodology and awareness of fire behavior was surprisingly good for the time. Not always of course, but if you read the interviews published a week after this fire you'll understand. These types of fires burning in an increasingly populated America would lead to major improvements in organization and funding for fire protection over the next 20 years and beyond.
The stories of the fire are published below, along with some great illustrations, and lessons learned that were published a week later. All are a wonderful discovery about a fire long ago forgotten, but now remembered. Following that, a link to another fire in the same area 10 years later, threatening William Kent's homestead.
by Tom Forster
Imagine fighting a forest fire in Marin in 1899. Just reporting the fire was a challenge. Who and how do you call for help? No two-way radios or 911 to dial, no cell signals or smartphones, few fire departments to summon, and the Mt. Tam fire lookout did not exist. How to get there to fight the fire? We can't go jump in our air conditioned Type III. No motorized fire trucks yet in Marin, that would not happen for another ten years. Our options are to get there on horseback, maybe with wagons, or, most likely, on foot. Perhaps using the railroad was an option to transport men and supplies, if the fire was nearby the few rail lines.
Call for mutual aid? Yes, sort of, but that usually just meant citizens coming from the various towns and maybe, just maybe, an organized fire department would eventually arrive - there were only a few in existence at that time. Protective clothing? Fire shelters? No, not invented yet. Backpack water pumps? Pulaski tools? Chainsaws? Drip Torches? Sorry, not around yet either. Can't call for air attack, no planes yet that were doing such a thing. That would not happen until the late 1950's. Handcrews? Nope, just able bodied men and women and kids from the various small communities. Marin's population at that time was roughly 15,000 people widely spread out over the region.
How about a fire camp with food vendors, re-hab, showers, supply stations, and wireless? Sorry, not there yet either. What if you were burned while fighting the fire? Any ambulances or line EMT's to call, Medics? Burn Centers? Sorry, many decades before they would be available. Call the Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry (later named Cal Fire), or the Tamalpais Forest Fire District? Not an option, none of these organizations were in existence yet. You could call for the Army to send troops. Call for an Incident Management Team? This management tool is also far way in the future.
With most of today's resources unavailable, you might imagine therefore that it was a poorly managed 'firefight.' Think again. The methodology and awareness of fire behavior was surprisingly good for the time. Not always of course, but if you read the interviews published a week after this fire you'll understand. These types of fires burning in an increasingly populated America would lead to major improvements in organization and funding for fire protection over the next 20 years and beyond.
The stories of the fire are published below, along with some great illustrations, and lessons learned that were published a week later. All are a wonderful discovery about a fire long ago forgotten, but now remembered. Following that, a link to another fire in the same area 10 years later, threatening William Kent's homestead.
"RAIN QUENCHES RAGING FIRES AROUND TAMALPAIS"
San Francisco Call, Volume 86, Number 133, 11 October 1899
"Wall of Flame Advancing to Destroy Corte Madera Extinguished by a Providential Downpour."
"A timely downpour of rain has extinguished the fierce forest fires that have raged since Monday afternoon around the base of Mount Tamalpais. At 9 o'clock last night the onrush of flame seemed to threaten the destruction of the towns of Larkspur and Corte Madera. It seemed as if nothing could stop the roaring inferno that had mounted the ridge separating them from Mill Valley. New assistance rushed to fight the fire.
At 10 o'clock, when hope seemed lost, when houses had been stripped of their furnishings and the roadside was littered with them, the clouds opened and rain began to patter, slowly at first, faster as the wind died down from a howling gale to a gentle breeze. The ruddy glow in the sky from the mile of fire died down and veered to the west, where great black storm clouds had gathered. Faster and faster came the downpour. The previously panic-stricken residents hurried back with their household goods; the sky grew black, the fire died down and by midnight had been soaked so thoroughly that southern Marin County had no fears as it turned into its bed tor the night, tired and happy that its roof was still over its head.
Nothing short of this providential downpour could have stayed the progress of the flames. Checked Monday night and yesterday in their advance down Corte Madera Canyon to Mill Valley, they smoldered awhile in the afternoon only to burst forth with renewed fierceness and to wheel with a mighty roar in a fiery attack from Warners Canyon around the eastern slope of Tamalpais on the rldge that separates the valley from Baltimore Canyon. At 9 o'clock at night a phalanx of leaping flames a mile long and half a mile wide was sweeping on down the western side of the rldge toward that canyon, threatening Corte Madera and Larkspur.
At Corte Madera everything appeared doomed before the onsweep of the flames and people rushed frantically about in their homes getting together what portables they could, burying others in hastily dug holes and deserting their homes to join the newly summoned crews of fire-fighters in a last desperate hope that the onrush of flame might be mlraculously stopped. For those that had nothing to lose from the conflagration the sight was magnificent beyond all description. For miles around the countryside was visible in ruddy relief. Sparks shot upward into the flaring heavens, descending in showers into the roaring, crackling, seething furnace breath. The wind swept from the northwest through the gulches and down the hillsides into the wall of fire, bending it in rolling waves.
There was something Plutonic In the air. Men and women ran to and fro, blinded by the glare of the oncoming fire, gesticulating wildly and shouting discordantly, lending a demoniac reality to the infernal ensemble. When the flames first leaped over the ridge in the afternoon Roadmaster John Taker of the narrow gauge line sent twenty-five section men to fight them. The railroaders were reinforced soon after by another force of twenty-five men hired by E. H. Pixley of Corte Madera. All the male residents of the town and of Larkspur Joined them in an attempt to backfire the advance coming faster and faster. The alarm grew as the gale roared and the fire leaped heavenward. Pillars of smoke rose high to conceal the blood-red sun, and clouds of dust were whirled through the canyon.
The fire was coming from the southwest right in the teeth of the gale, that was blowing not less than forty miles an hour. There were only two campers In Baltimore Canyon, Miss Nellie Baker and Miss Sylvia Campbell of 347 Minnesota street, this city, and their goods were moved at once to Larkspur. Charles Rice and Charles Burkhardt of San Rafael and A. Silva of Corte Madera volunteered their services and their express wagons, and were soon busy moving the furniture of the Corte Madera householders to Larkspur, where, though the flames threatened to reach it, they might be safe for a breathing time. Messrs. H. Metler and J. Herzog of the Larkspur Hotel gave storage to much of the hastiily moved furniture, while the remainder was stacked in piles along the county road.
The wind died down a little toward dusk, and although it was still blowing to the fire the conflagration grew and roared and advanced, until at dusk it reddened the sky until it could be seen as far as San Francisco, fifteen miles away.
At 9 o'clock it was reported that nothing could stop the rush of the fire down Baltimore Canyon and that the houses of the following were doomed: Attorney E. C. Chapman. George Wall. M. Gilllgan, Joseph Simms. Charles Wilson, Miss O'Connor, John O'Connor, Dr. Bliss, Miss Adams, Walter Peterson, Dr. Card, Peter S. Conke, William Jackson, A. .F. Sheldon and E. H. and H. L. Pixley. At Chapman's the women folk had torn up all the carpets, and placing In them many articles of value they could not very well carry, buried them In a hastily dug hole in the soft loam, to be dug up again when the expected fires sweeping toward their home had been finally extinguished.
On the Coleman-Forbes tract John Wade, a wealthy land owner, had twenty five men engaged back-firing In order to check the advance of the flames to his property, near Alto station. Owners of cattle were driving their herds out on the county road out of reach of danger. From Mill Valley and Corte Madera Canyon came other reinforcements, men who had become veteran fire fighters in a night and a day, and they, too, plunged Into the seething vortex, and still the flames rushed on. And then as if by magic the gale softened to a breeze, the wind veered and the rain began.
It seemed to drop so gingerly In spots for a time that those who had been inwardly praying for It as the only salvation were fearful to shout lest they should be disappointed: but more than one gave silent evidence of the faith that was in him by starting, furniture-laden, for his recently deserted home. The promise contained it. The first gentle patter was confirmed a few minutes later by a steady dropping and by the incoming of a stormcloud from the west that presaged more. In less than fifteen minutes the shower was heavy. At 10:30 o'clock it was still coming down and all danger had passed, and the most fearsome, toilsome day In the history of the southern part of Marin County had passed with It.
The passage of the fire that started Monday on the Rosenquist property near the water tanks, spreading east and south, was easily traceable yesterday morning. Down Corte Madera Canyon, south and east into Blithedale and Warner canyons, and easterly over the Cascade ride toward Larkspur, its path was marked by blazing tree stumps and underbrush reduced to ashes. It swept into the beautiful Japanese garden of George Marsh, and besides destroying the "Owls' Nest" and the roundhouse, consumed a large area of vaulable plant growth. Including an acre of the finest Woodwardia ferns ever grown in the State. Southerly in Corte Madera Canyon, almost to the grounds of the Hotel Eastland, on both sides of the railroad track, the undergrowth was nothing but hot ashes and smoldering embers. In Warner's (or Boyle's) Canyon its black and gray trail was still hot when the men who had fought the danger through the night saw the first rays of yesterday's sun.
Monday night had been one of Intense excitement in valley and canyon. The sky was red with reflected flames that leaped up from the open places; the wind blew hot in fitful gusts; in the deep recesses of the redwoods the underbrush flamed and crackled, and shadows danced in the swaying treetops. The voices of men calling to men sounded like warnings to doom. For lack of water every other available means of flrefighting was used. Where the advance of flame was too strong to be held in check by ordinary means and where opportunity and the wind offered backfires were started.
Men and women, some of whom had hastened over from this city in alarm at the first reports, volunteered for the work. The managements of the North Pacific Coast and Scenic Railways pressed their employes into the service and furnished trains to carry fire lighters and supplies from all the stations on the line as far south as Sausalito. Wet sacks, garden hose, picks, shovels, brush hooks and axes were provided and every able-bodied resident of the southern part of the county turned out to help extinguish the furnace re-fleeted In the heavens.
Men on horseback, in buggies and wagons and all sorts of rigs fairly flew to the rescue of their threatened redwoods and all through the night worked like demons to avert disaster. When the morning broke the fires seemed to be under control. The firefighters, black from smoke, hollow eyed from the lack of sleep and from the glare of the flames, presented a sorry-looking sight in the light of dawn. They were most of them ready to drop in their tracks from the night's exertions had it not been that they were still stimulated with excitement and fearful that the rising winds might still fan the smoldering embers into other columns of flame. They told of watches in all the canyons and deeply wooded hillsides and, in squads sought breakfast and a few hours sleep before noon. It was well they did. Their fears of the wind were well founded.
At 1 o'clock it had assumed the proportions of a good, stiff breeze, and by 2 o'clock it was whistling through the canyons, carrying clouds of dust and smoke in its embrace. Again the underbrush began to crackle and snap, smoke rose in threatening spirals into the atmosphere, still hazy from the smoke of the night before. Deer, frightened from their coverts, ran aimlessly through the redwoods and up and down the country roads, birds twittered in fright, rabbits and wood rats and quail skurried in one heedless, panicstricken throng anywhere and everywhere from the fire demon.
Fires smoldering in the ashes under the redwoods were fanned into flame, charred stumps blazed anew and a thin trail of fire forked both ways in the sorthern part of Corte Madera Canyon and in Warners Canyon.
Mounted men hastened to the threatened forests. D. H. Bibb, the lumber man, who has a large residence under the eastern brow of Tamalpais, put a large torce of men to work to head off the advance of the new-blown fire over the ridge into Baltimore Canyon. His own residence was in no danger. His men worked heroically setting backfires, but the wind was against them and the flames mounted the ridge to threaten Larkspur and Corte Madera, leaving the lower Corte Madera Canyon and Mill Valley in temporary safety.
Over in Warners Canyon and near Blythedale the gale had fanned the flames on their second errand of destruction, and it was not long before riders raced into Mill Valley with the news that the residences of Dr. Alexander Warner and Hugh Boyle had been consumed. These rumors were found later to be untrue. The flames, attaining great volume, had swept into the canyon as on the night before and before they were checked had completely destroyed the growth of trees and vines on Warner's place. By the time the rain fell there the danger point appeared to have been passed, but the downpour was none the less welcome. And now that the greatest forest fire in the history of Marin County has passed into history, the residents of the valleys and canyons are thanking their stars and the rain that lt was not worse.
Although many lives were endangered none were lost, Lorenzo Ferrari, who was supposed to have perished in the flames, having appeared in the flesh bright and early yesterday to fight the flames. Much personal property was damaged, how much is not known, but its value will run up close to $100,000, but this is hardly regretted as much as the destruction of trees on the ridge and in Warners Canyon. That loss can only be repaired by time."
San Francisco Call, Volume 86, Number 133, 11 October 1899
"Wall of Flame Advancing to Destroy Corte Madera Extinguished by a Providential Downpour."
"A timely downpour of rain has extinguished the fierce forest fires that have raged since Monday afternoon around the base of Mount Tamalpais. At 9 o'clock last night the onrush of flame seemed to threaten the destruction of the towns of Larkspur and Corte Madera. It seemed as if nothing could stop the roaring inferno that had mounted the ridge separating them from Mill Valley. New assistance rushed to fight the fire.
At 10 o'clock, when hope seemed lost, when houses had been stripped of their furnishings and the roadside was littered with them, the clouds opened and rain began to patter, slowly at first, faster as the wind died down from a howling gale to a gentle breeze. The ruddy glow in the sky from the mile of fire died down and veered to the west, where great black storm clouds had gathered. Faster and faster came the downpour. The previously panic-stricken residents hurried back with their household goods; the sky grew black, the fire died down and by midnight had been soaked so thoroughly that southern Marin County had no fears as it turned into its bed tor the night, tired and happy that its roof was still over its head.
Nothing short of this providential downpour could have stayed the progress of the flames. Checked Monday night and yesterday in their advance down Corte Madera Canyon to Mill Valley, they smoldered awhile in the afternoon only to burst forth with renewed fierceness and to wheel with a mighty roar in a fiery attack from Warners Canyon around the eastern slope of Tamalpais on the rldge that separates the valley from Baltimore Canyon. At 9 o'clock at night a phalanx of leaping flames a mile long and half a mile wide was sweeping on down the western side of the rldge toward that canyon, threatening Corte Madera and Larkspur.
At Corte Madera everything appeared doomed before the onsweep of the flames and people rushed frantically about in their homes getting together what portables they could, burying others in hastily dug holes and deserting their homes to join the newly summoned crews of fire-fighters in a last desperate hope that the onrush of flame might be mlraculously stopped. For those that had nothing to lose from the conflagration the sight was magnificent beyond all description. For miles around the countryside was visible in ruddy relief. Sparks shot upward into the flaring heavens, descending in showers into the roaring, crackling, seething furnace breath. The wind swept from the northwest through the gulches and down the hillsides into the wall of fire, bending it in rolling waves.
There was something Plutonic In the air. Men and women ran to and fro, blinded by the glare of the oncoming fire, gesticulating wildly and shouting discordantly, lending a demoniac reality to the infernal ensemble. When the flames first leaped over the ridge in the afternoon Roadmaster John Taker of the narrow gauge line sent twenty-five section men to fight them. The railroaders were reinforced soon after by another force of twenty-five men hired by E. H. Pixley of Corte Madera. All the male residents of the town and of Larkspur Joined them in an attempt to backfire the advance coming faster and faster. The alarm grew as the gale roared and the fire leaped heavenward. Pillars of smoke rose high to conceal the blood-red sun, and clouds of dust were whirled through the canyon.
The fire was coming from the southwest right in the teeth of the gale, that was blowing not less than forty miles an hour. There were only two campers In Baltimore Canyon, Miss Nellie Baker and Miss Sylvia Campbell of 347 Minnesota street, this city, and their goods were moved at once to Larkspur. Charles Rice and Charles Burkhardt of San Rafael and A. Silva of Corte Madera volunteered their services and their express wagons, and were soon busy moving the furniture of the Corte Madera householders to Larkspur, where, though the flames threatened to reach it, they might be safe for a breathing time. Messrs. H. Metler and J. Herzog of the Larkspur Hotel gave storage to much of the hastiily moved furniture, while the remainder was stacked in piles along the county road.
The wind died down a little toward dusk, and although it was still blowing to the fire the conflagration grew and roared and advanced, until at dusk it reddened the sky until it could be seen as far as San Francisco, fifteen miles away.
At 9 o'clock it was reported that nothing could stop the rush of the fire down Baltimore Canyon and that the houses of the following were doomed: Attorney E. C. Chapman. George Wall. M. Gilllgan, Joseph Simms. Charles Wilson, Miss O'Connor, John O'Connor, Dr. Bliss, Miss Adams, Walter Peterson, Dr. Card, Peter S. Conke, William Jackson, A. .F. Sheldon and E. H. and H. L. Pixley. At Chapman's the women folk had torn up all the carpets, and placing In them many articles of value they could not very well carry, buried them In a hastily dug hole in the soft loam, to be dug up again when the expected fires sweeping toward their home had been finally extinguished.
On the Coleman-Forbes tract John Wade, a wealthy land owner, had twenty five men engaged back-firing In order to check the advance of the flames to his property, near Alto station. Owners of cattle were driving their herds out on the county road out of reach of danger. From Mill Valley and Corte Madera Canyon came other reinforcements, men who had become veteran fire fighters in a night and a day, and they, too, plunged Into the seething vortex, and still the flames rushed on. And then as if by magic the gale softened to a breeze, the wind veered and the rain began.
It seemed to drop so gingerly In spots for a time that those who had been inwardly praying for It as the only salvation were fearful to shout lest they should be disappointed: but more than one gave silent evidence of the faith that was in him by starting, furniture-laden, for his recently deserted home. The promise contained it. The first gentle patter was confirmed a few minutes later by a steady dropping and by the incoming of a stormcloud from the west that presaged more. In less than fifteen minutes the shower was heavy. At 10:30 o'clock it was still coming down and all danger had passed, and the most fearsome, toilsome day In the history of the southern part of Marin County had passed with It.
The passage of the fire that started Monday on the Rosenquist property near the water tanks, spreading east and south, was easily traceable yesterday morning. Down Corte Madera Canyon, south and east into Blithedale and Warner canyons, and easterly over the Cascade ride toward Larkspur, its path was marked by blazing tree stumps and underbrush reduced to ashes. It swept into the beautiful Japanese garden of George Marsh, and besides destroying the "Owls' Nest" and the roundhouse, consumed a large area of vaulable plant growth. Including an acre of the finest Woodwardia ferns ever grown in the State. Southerly in Corte Madera Canyon, almost to the grounds of the Hotel Eastland, on both sides of the railroad track, the undergrowth was nothing but hot ashes and smoldering embers. In Warner's (or Boyle's) Canyon its black and gray trail was still hot when the men who had fought the danger through the night saw the first rays of yesterday's sun.
Monday night had been one of Intense excitement in valley and canyon. The sky was red with reflected flames that leaped up from the open places; the wind blew hot in fitful gusts; in the deep recesses of the redwoods the underbrush flamed and crackled, and shadows danced in the swaying treetops. The voices of men calling to men sounded like warnings to doom. For lack of water every other available means of flrefighting was used. Where the advance of flame was too strong to be held in check by ordinary means and where opportunity and the wind offered backfires were started.
Men and women, some of whom had hastened over from this city in alarm at the first reports, volunteered for the work. The managements of the North Pacific Coast and Scenic Railways pressed their employes into the service and furnished trains to carry fire lighters and supplies from all the stations on the line as far south as Sausalito. Wet sacks, garden hose, picks, shovels, brush hooks and axes were provided and every able-bodied resident of the southern part of the county turned out to help extinguish the furnace re-fleeted In the heavens.
Men on horseback, in buggies and wagons and all sorts of rigs fairly flew to the rescue of their threatened redwoods and all through the night worked like demons to avert disaster. When the morning broke the fires seemed to be under control. The firefighters, black from smoke, hollow eyed from the lack of sleep and from the glare of the flames, presented a sorry-looking sight in the light of dawn. They were most of them ready to drop in their tracks from the night's exertions had it not been that they were still stimulated with excitement and fearful that the rising winds might still fan the smoldering embers into other columns of flame. They told of watches in all the canyons and deeply wooded hillsides and, in squads sought breakfast and a few hours sleep before noon. It was well they did. Their fears of the wind were well founded.
At 1 o'clock it had assumed the proportions of a good, stiff breeze, and by 2 o'clock it was whistling through the canyons, carrying clouds of dust and smoke in its embrace. Again the underbrush began to crackle and snap, smoke rose in threatening spirals into the atmosphere, still hazy from the smoke of the night before. Deer, frightened from their coverts, ran aimlessly through the redwoods and up and down the country roads, birds twittered in fright, rabbits and wood rats and quail skurried in one heedless, panicstricken throng anywhere and everywhere from the fire demon.
Fires smoldering in the ashes under the redwoods were fanned into flame, charred stumps blazed anew and a thin trail of fire forked both ways in the sorthern part of Corte Madera Canyon and in Warners Canyon.
Mounted men hastened to the threatened forests. D. H. Bibb, the lumber man, who has a large residence under the eastern brow of Tamalpais, put a large torce of men to work to head off the advance of the new-blown fire over the ridge into Baltimore Canyon. His own residence was in no danger. His men worked heroically setting backfires, but the wind was against them and the flames mounted the ridge to threaten Larkspur and Corte Madera, leaving the lower Corte Madera Canyon and Mill Valley in temporary safety.
Over in Warners Canyon and near Blythedale the gale had fanned the flames on their second errand of destruction, and it was not long before riders raced into Mill Valley with the news that the residences of Dr. Alexander Warner and Hugh Boyle had been consumed. These rumors were found later to be untrue. The flames, attaining great volume, had swept into the canyon as on the night before and before they were checked had completely destroyed the growth of trees and vines on Warner's place. By the time the rain fell there the danger point appeared to have been passed, but the downpour was none the less welcome. And now that the greatest forest fire in the history of Marin County has passed into history, the residents of the valleys and canyons are thanking their stars and the rain that lt was not worse.
Although many lives were endangered none were lost, Lorenzo Ferrari, who was supposed to have perished in the flames, having appeared in the flesh bright and early yesterday to fight the flames. Much personal property was damaged, how much is not known, but its value will run up close to $100,000, but this is hardly regretted as much as the destruction of trees on the ridge and in Warners Canyon. That loss can only be repaired by time."
Original article below, San Francisco Call, Volume 86, Number 133, 11 October 1899. The text has been published above, for your readability.
The article below followed one week later in the San Francisco Call, and the full narrative is posted below the image of the page for easier readability.
"Lessons to Be Learned From the Tamalpais Fire - The Men Who Have Been Through Many Forest Fires Tell How the Grim Enemy May Be Conquered."
"Lesson to be Learned from The Tamalpais Fire
San Francisco Call, Volume 86, Number 144, 22 October 1899
The Men Who Have Been Through Many Forest Fires Tell How the Grim Enemy May Be Conquered
October has been a month of most serious forest fires for California. With the exceptionally hot weather experienced all over the State - so warm that even San Francisco was reduced to the melting point - fires seemed to burst forth in the wooded localities as if from spontaneous combustion. In the far distant mountains, with only the straggling sheepherder's hut or the lone rancher's farm in jeopardy, the king of destroyers seems not so all-powerful, but when he comes to the forests and glades wherein nestle the habitations of thousands and where not only thousands of dollars of valuable homes seem destined to go up in smoke, but the probable loss of many lives is imminent - then is his terrible power realized.
Most forcibly was this brought to us by the narrow escape of Marin County barely a few days ago. The experience of the Sutro forest fire on the outskirts of San Francisco itself could hardly be classed under the head of the real forest fire, but that across the bay was entirely different. There was no opportunity for hook and ladder or hose and engine or the use of trained men - forest fires do not run upon that plan - and with a good start upon the part of grim old King Fire there was abundant fuel in sight to have lasted for months and run the loss into millions of dollars and many lives.
It certainly seemed that divine Providence took a hand in sending the rain which checked the flames, and it is also interesting to consider the fact that many prayers were being offered up at that very time for just that very thing to occur.
Even the rain would have availed little however, had it not been for the determined efforts of the men under the direction of a few master minds trained by the experiences of former fires, for almost impossible as it may seem this most awful of all scourges can be controlled and quelled by a comparatively small number of men if they work with understanding and system. The men who acted as leaders and saved the day tell the story of how it was done and explain the only methods by which the grim monster may be conquered. Living in a State so thickly wooded as California, and apt at any time during the warm summer months to be visited by a fire of a most devastating character, it is well for all to read and learn the scientific and most efficient ways of fighting forest fires.
In a sea of fire on a lonely mountain top, fighting for their lives, and even more for the lives of others, were the brave men who stayed the progress of the Mill Valley fire of a week ago. Thousands of dwellers in Marin County who lived among the wooded canyons and hills swept by the recent fire have thanked providence as they have never done before for that work that saved their homes and lifelong accumulations of property from destruction. Will I. Pixley, who lived in Marin County, and has seen all of the great fires, had some interesting accounts of them and of the last fire.
"I did not think that the fire would get much of a start," he said, "as Mill Valley has heretofore always managed to quickly suppress it's own fires by prompt action and unlimited use of money in securing men, but above all by their complete system of roads, which cut the forest in every direction, giving a freedom of movement and opportunity for proper dlsposition of their forces.
"It seems though that the fire got too much of a start, and in the Corte Madera Canyon of Blithedale it crossed not only a road, but two roads, with the creek, and included land lying between them. It seemed to make a flying leap from one side of the valley to the other without touching the trees in the canyon. From there the fire had no opposition, nor could any be given until it reached the top of the hill lying between Bllthedale and Warner Canyon. Here the hardest fight was made, but owing to the fact that there was no road or trail and that the brush was high and dense it was as much as a man's life was worth to go in there. The fire advanced slowly down the hill. When it approached the bottom of the canyon was the time when the people of Corte Madera and Larkspur should have met it and made their entire fight there, instead of waiting until the fire had burned the heavy timber from the top of Little Tamalpais and gathered almost irresistible force to sweep down upon them.
"The forest fires must be fought where they can be beaten, and not be left to burn until up against a man's fence.
It is impossible to extinguish one of them when under good headway and coming up a hill, but when descending a hill the fire is very sluggish and advances mainly by the tumbling down hill of rotten logs and the wood in rats nests.
These burning brands are, of course, easier to put out with a shovel to beat them and throw earth on them, but if they are left, they set fire to the leaves, which in turn ignite the underbrush, and so it goes clear up to the tree tops."
"Those rats nests, by the way, are a source of terror to any one in the forest. The rats will usually select a loose log on which to commence piling limbs of trees and bits of brush, leaves, and rotten wood. This they will continue for years, and probably whole generations of rats continue adding to the pile, for I have never yet seen one that did not have fresh leaves on its top. Some of them are six or seven feet high and as wide at the base. The thoroughly dried twigs burn with a fierce heat, and soon the trees around them and the big logs on which they are built go tumbling down the hillside and scatter the hundreds of burning brands to start the leaves in every direction."
"When I arrived at Corte Madera Tuesday afternoon every one there said that there was no danger, and two people who had Just been over to Mill Valley said the fire was out, or nearly so, and that it could not again get beyond control. It was not more than two hours after this when the lire had not only got beyond control, but had burned its way from nearly sea level to the top of Little Tamalpais, 1000 feet in height. Up we had to go on the run, packing our tools and breaking our way through thick brush until we came to an open grass slope. This was burning furiously, but was quickly extinguished with redwood limbs, with which we beat it out."
"From the edge of the grass we followed the fire into the brush, but the unburned part was so thick as to be a solid barrier, so we were compelled to follow In on the part where the fire had already burned and walk over the smoking embers. This was hot work, but while we blistered our feet and burned our hands and faces, there was not the danger of roasting alive that there would have been had we become entangled in the unburned brush."
"With our shovels we pulled down the burning brush, beat It out and covered loose earth over the burning leaves. Often when we had extinguished a long line of fire, the flames in front would work down hill more rapidly and get away from us, then work slowly around below the unburned brush and come rushing up the hill at us. Of course it would stop when it reached the burned part, but it would also commence to run slowly along the hill horizontally. Then we would have to rush down through the smoking stubs of branches and follow back up the line again."
"There was probably not more than one-quarter of a mile of front left to the fire when it was determined to make a bold effort by cutting through the brush low to stop the whole thing at once, so we began to marshal the available men and set them to work in some order. Paths were cut in front of the fire line, over a hundred willing hands aiding at the work, and soon a chain of such clearings was made, and as the roaring of the flames neared us, back fires were started from the paths and went rushing up the sides of the hill and met the down coming conflagration. As the fires approached each other the flames shot and leaped and Jumped at each other like fire giants In a tussel of death.
And death it was, for neither fire could cross the other, each having burned off all of the combustible material, leaving the ground clean. Then the villages seemed safe."
"Excitable persons who had removed their belongings commenced to gather them In. But forest fires are often in their most dangerous stage when they look the most harmless. Those who had fought fire all day had scarcely finished their suppers when darkness came on and with it a ruddy glare of light reflecting from Tamalpais, thrown there from some unseen core of fire, behind the Little Tamalpais range. The light grew and finally the flames again came over the ridge striking terror to the hearts of those, who had imagined themselves secure."
"It seemed worse this time than before, for the flames were in impregnable brush and the fierce gale which was blowing with stunning force was veering around so as to drive the fire on the towns. Darkness and impassable brush forbade a repetition of the work of the day, on drove the fire and there was nothing to be done to save the town from destruction. Acre after acre of timber was being turned to barren waste every minute and no help for it, when a phenomenon occurred such as I have never before witnessed, rain began to fall as it appeared out of an almost clear sky, but after our first surprise was over we examined the sky more carefully and discovered a long, thin gauze-like cloud, so thin that the stars could be seen through it. yet the rain continued."
"Now more and darker clouds began to raise and lend their aid to our first friend, the filmy cloud that had thinned almost to lmperceptibility. The rain as it increased in volume gained over the fire, and soon all that was left of two miles of raging furnace was here and there a deep red glow that looked like a blowhole In the lava of a crater. Yes, I am glad it's out, but I have seen two before. The great fire of 1880 which cleared every green leaf west of the top of Tamalpais, and the Larkspur fire of ten years since that burned half of the Baltimore Canyon and most of Corte Madera."
"And I will never feel safe about not seeing others until the Marin County authorities wake up to the idea that the county is growing and that it is time to give us roads and cut up this dangerous wilderness that is now of no use to any one and a danger to all."
S. B. Cushlng, president of the Mill Valley and Tamalpals Railroad, said: "I do not consider that there is any danger to life in any of these fires, and as far as experience has gone there has been comparatively little toss on improved property, such as dwellings. "Our railroad has had much to do with increasing the facilities for handling fire, as it enables us to land men fresh and ready for work on almost any ridge of the mountain, where formerly they had two hours of hard walking to get there and were all worn out and unfit to do anything when they arrived. I have now no trouble in landing men anywhere on fifteen minutes' notice, with all their tools and a safe method of escape besides."
D. E. Baker, superintendent of construction of the North Pacific Coast Railroad, has many' years of experience in flghting fire all along the line of the railroad from Sausalito to Cazadero, and to him it seemed an old story. "I never feel afraid" he said, "and have no troupe in extinguishing a fire if there are roadways or trails through the forest, so that I can get my men to it and handle them in a body. I usually try to work on the fire entirely by flanking. This is, the fire generally advances with the wind or up a grade with a more or less uniform line, such as ranks of troops would take.
Shovels are the main tools to be used, as the leaves and grass can be removed from the path of the fire and earth can be thrown on the burning embers." Charles Taylor, who came near being roasted alive Tuesday night, has rather strong opinions. He said: "The damage done by this fire was small compared with what it would have been had we not checked it as it crossed the ridge of 'Little Tamalpais,' but the property destroyed was sufficient in value to impress upon residents of the Tamalpais slope the great necessity of taking steps to prevent a repetition of such destructive flres. The past history of this part of Marin County shows that a large area Is burned over every few years, and the groves of majestic redwoods which adorn the valleys of the region are burned so often that many of the largest specimens have trucks that are like a tall column covered with a feathery growth.
Marin County's scenic beauty is due in large part to the sequoias, and to save these if for no other reason, should her forests be protected. "With the probability of a great fire occurring again at anytime, the property owners should organize and sustain an emergency fire company which could be called out on short notice and capably handled.
This could be accomplished by having each of the townsites, railroad and construction companies guarantee to have a certain number of men report at their respective depots for transportation. A fire chief and deputies for each squad of men should be appointed; in this way time would be saved and a better apportioning of men obtained than when each tries to save his own at the expense or to the neglect of other's property."
"Persons are not likely to send men to aid others when they have no guarantee that a like turn will be done for them, but if an organization were effected the plan would be simplified, the men would not have to be engaged so long and the expense would be divided among those for whose benefit it was incurred. The matter of transportation is also very important. It has been found that men unused to hill-climbing are fatigued getting to the fire that they are largely Incapacitated for effective work. The mountain railway was used to good advantage in landing men at proper elevations fresh and fit. "The methods employed In fighting forest and grass fires are very different from those employed In city fires. If, for instance, the fire Is in a canyon grown up with trees and underbrush, it is impossible to get within reach of the flames or to stand the heat If the place were accessible."
"It must be remembered also that in fighting these fires one is fortunate if he gets water enough to wet a sack, so a method must be resorted to which can be conducted at a distance from the flames and without water. "In fighting plain grass fires the men are supplied with wet sacks and shovels. The advancing flames are atttacked from both flanks and followed toward the tip. By this method the workmen are kept at the side of the flame and can run perpendicularly away from the dlrection of the advancing conflagration if the situation becomes dangerous. The flames usually travel in long, tonguelike shapes, more or less rounded at the advancing end, as the wind is brisk or light."
The tongue travels rapidly with the wind and very slowly on the sides. If the ground over which the fire Is burning is covered with grass only the burned part can be followed and fought from the rear. If the tongue is advancing up a hill back-firing is the surest way out of the difficulty. l was at one time when near the top of Little Tamalpais cut off entirely by the fire and only escaped by setting fire to the brush around me, and slowly dodging my own little fire until It had burned a place that I could set into and stand more secure from the great fire, which, instead of creeping and burning slowly, as they all do at the commencement, was rolling along with flames forty feet high in the ordinary brush and leaping above the highest treetops when it came to groves of them.
Fire travels up hill with great rapidity because the current of hot air generated ascends the slope of the hill. Thus the same tendency which leads the fire up one side of a mountain is utilized to intercept its advance at the top. In thick brush it is necessary to clear a path along parallel with the ridge and just below its crest on the side opposite that from which the fire is advancing and back-fire from this- if the wind is too strong to risk letting the main fire burn to its edge. Roads are after all the only way to fight such fires whether it be a regularly traveled road or one hacked out of the forest in a hurry for the purpose."
The women of Marin County also are heroic. In each of the forest fires that there have been some of them have done work that would have quailed many a manly heart, and they did it too without hope of reward or thought of even gratitude being expressed. In Larkspur and Corte Madera there are not many men around during the day. All the morning they drop away to the busy city, trainload, after trainload, until when 'the bankers' train departs at 10 o'clock or thereabouts the little towns are practically deserted.
So the women grow self-reliant and learn to deal with tramps, stray cows, and various complications that visit suburban villas. In the Warner Canyon, where the heavlest burning took place, the house was only saved by the Indefatigable exertions of all engaged, and Miss Warner and her sister; assisted by the two Miss Defenbachs and Miss Carmelita Boyle, kept the water running to wet the sacks with which the fire was beaten, cooked meals for the worn-out men and kept watch and ward to see that the only means or escape down the canyon should not be cut off by a retrograde movement of the fire. Miss Boyle would not admit that she or her companion girl firefighters had done anything unusual, and she seemed to think that going into a winding canyon with burning trees falling on all sides was one of the most ordinary things tnai could happen any day.
"1 went in about 9 o'clock Tuesday morning, she said, "and did not come out until the fire was nearly over. A one time, while my brother Hugh was in one of the smaller canyons on the south side of the Warner house, trying to stop the fire from getting down through the thick redwoods, some one set a back fire below him and he came nearly being imprisoned in there, except for my seeing it and sending a man up on the hill to give him warning. Even then he had to fight his way down through the trail, that is none too wide to walk through even when the brush that lines it is not on fire."
"Back fires may be useful in some places." said Hugh Boyle himself; "but I have seen little use for them, and the hardest work that I had during the two days of the fire was in preventing people from setting back fires and In escaping from them and putting them out, after they were set. The only fire that reached was one that was set as a back fire, but being in the heavy brush it became uncontrollable and had to burn Itself out. Talk about hot work, though. That day in Warner Canyon was one to be remembered. The smoke became so thick that nothing could be seen at times, and the thickness of the bank of It above us obscured the sun until every object took on a copper tint, and then all would get black again. Our worst fight was to save the water tank. The fire would keep running at it from every direction, and if its supports once burned and let the water out we would have had to let the house go."
When the fire was at its height and when every one else was either busy putting out fires or attempting to save property one little child devoted herself to praying in her own simple words for devine assistance, and, strange as it was, rain was soon falling from a small cloud overhead, although the rest of the sky was comparatively clear and starlit.
"I asked God to come and fight the fire, and at first I did not know how he was going to do it, but when I heard the soft raindrops falling. I just thanked him for answering my prayer." So little Dorothy Putnam Sheldon tells the story of her faith that was stronger than fear. Many times has rain been prayed for, but never was urgent necessity more speedily received. Her family had been camping in a beautiful redwood canyon on the northern slope of Little Tamalpais and had that morning been driven from their plcturesque tents by the threatening fire. All day long she had watched its smoke puffs hurrying along the ridges and the flames at times seeming to envelop the men that hewed and tugged at the thick brush clearing a trail in front of the advancing conflagration. To the child, deeply imbued with a sense of the responsIbilities in life, it seemed she, too. must do something to stay that awful fire. She could not see those men working so hard without help. Leaving her terror-stricken little friends to gaze awfully upon the fire she retired to her room to call upon a power that, as it seemed to her, alone could master the enemy.
The name of Tamalpais must have been given by reason of some former experience like the foregoing. Ta mal pals -Take care - Beware - Stay - l recollect- Bad country. That is the meaning in Spanish of the name of Tamalpais which has just shown by this fiery exhibition what could be done in the way of extempore volcanics. Less than 500 acres was burned over altogether, and Tamalpais has something like ten tons of combustlble greasewood and laurel to the acre. Some time the mountain will break in earnest. Then Ta mal pais - Take care - Beware - Stay - l recollect - Mischievous land.
The sides of Tamalpais and of its recumbent foothills are covered with a brush known to the earlier Californians as greasewood, a shrub that will burn when growing merely by applying a match to the green leaves. Mixed with it is the California laurel, which ignites less readily, but when once fired burns with a semi-explosive flash, owing to the large percentage of pungent essential oils in its foliage. About one hundred thousand tons of this inflammable material is spread around, laid on the hot hills to dry, as it were. Dried all summer, scorched in the fall and by the hot day of October 8 the woods were singed until ready to ignite with a match. Had the rain not fallen it would have taken more than a page to tell of that fire."
San Francisco Call, Volume 86, Number 144, 22 October 1899
The Men Who Have Been Through Many Forest Fires Tell How the Grim Enemy May Be Conquered
October has been a month of most serious forest fires for California. With the exceptionally hot weather experienced all over the State - so warm that even San Francisco was reduced to the melting point - fires seemed to burst forth in the wooded localities as if from spontaneous combustion. In the far distant mountains, with only the straggling sheepherder's hut or the lone rancher's farm in jeopardy, the king of destroyers seems not so all-powerful, but when he comes to the forests and glades wherein nestle the habitations of thousands and where not only thousands of dollars of valuable homes seem destined to go up in smoke, but the probable loss of many lives is imminent - then is his terrible power realized.
Most forcibly was this brought to us by the narrow escape of Marin County barely a few days ago. The experience of the Sutro forest fire on the outskirts of San Francisco itself could hardly be classed under the head of the real forest fire, but that across the bay was entirely different. There was no opportunity for hook and ladder or hose and engine or the use of trained men - forest fires do not run upon that plan - and with a good start upon the part of grim old King Fire there was abundant fuel in sight to have lasted for months and run the loss into millions of dollars and many lives.
It certainly seemed that divine Providence took a hand in sending the rain which checked the flames, and it is also interesting to consider the fact that many prayers were being offered up at that very time for just that very thing to occur.
Even the rain would have availed little however, had it not been for the determined efforts of the men under the direction of a few master minds trained by the experiences of former fires, for almost impossible as it may seem this most awful of all scourges can be controlled and quelled by a comparatively small number of men if they work with understanding and system. The men who acted as leaders and saved the day tell the story of how it was done and explain the only methods by which the grim monster may be conquered. Living in a State so thickly wooded as California, and apt at any time during the warm summer months to be visited by a fire of a most devastating character, it is well for all to read and learn the scientific and most efficient ways of fighting forest fires.
In a sea of fire on a lonely mountain top, fighting for their lives, and even more for the lives of others, were the brave men who stayed the progress of the Mill Valley fire of a week ago. Thousands of dwellers in Marin County who lived among the wooded canyons and hills swept by the recent fire have thanked providence as they have never done before for that work that saved their homes and lifelong accumulations of property from destruction. Will I. Pixley, who lived in Marin County, and has seen all of the great fires, had some interesting accounts of them and of the last fire.
"I did not think that the fire would get much of a start," he said, "as Mill Valley has heretofore always managed to quickly suppress it's own fires by prompt action and unlimited use of money in securing men, but above all by their complete system of roads, which cut the forest in every direction, giving a freedom of movement and opportunity for proper dlsposition of their forces.
"It seems though that the fire got too much of a start, and in the Corte Madera Canyon of Blithedale it crossed not only a road, but two roads, with the creek, and included land lying between them. It seemed to make a flying leap from one side of the valley to the other without touching the trees in the canyon. From there the fire had no opposition, nor could any be given until it reached the top of the hill lying between Bllthedale and Warner Canyon. Here the hardest fight was made, but owing to the fact that there was no road or trail and that the brush was high and dense it was as much as a man's life was worth to go in there. The fire advanced slowly down the hill. When it approached the bottom of the canyon was the time when the people of Corte Madera and Larkspur should have met it and made their entire fight there, instead of waiting until the fire had burned the heavy timber from the top of Little Tamalpais and gathered almost irresistible force to sweep down upon them.
"The forest fires must be fought where they can be beaten, and not be left to burn until up against a man's fence.
It is impossible to extinguish one of them when under good headway and coming up a hill, but when descending a hill the fire is very sluggish and advances mainly by the tumbling down hill of rotten logs and the wood in rats nests.
These burning brands are, of course, easier to put out with a shovel to beat them and throw earth on them, but if they are left, they set fire to the leaves, which in turn ignite the underbrush, and so it goes clear up to the tree tops."
"Those rats nests, by the way, are a source of terror to any one in the forest. The rats will usually select a loose log on which to commence piling limbs of trees and bits of brush, leaves, and rotten wood. This they will continue for years, and probably whole generations of rats continue adding to the pile, for I have never yet seen one that did not have fresh leaves on its top. Some of them are six or seven feet high and as wide at the base. The thoroughly dried twigs burn with a fierce heat, and soon the trees around them and the big logs on which they are built go tumbling down the hillside and scatter the hundreds of burning brands to start the leaves in every direction."
"When I arrived at Corte Madera Tuesday afternoon every one there said that there was no danger, and two people who had Just been over to Mill Valley said the fire was out, or nearly so, and that it could not again get beyond control. It was not more than two hours after this when the lire had not only got beyond control, but had burned its way from nearly sea level to the top of Little Tamalpais, 1000 feet in height. Up we had to go on the run, packing our tools and breaking our way through thick brush until we came to an open grass slope. This was burning furiously, but was quickly extinguished with redwood limbs, with which we beat it out."
"From the edge of the grass we followed the fire into the brush, but the unburned part was so thick as to be a solid barrier, so we were compelled to follow In on the part where the fire had already burned and walk over the smoking embers. This was hot work, but while we blistered our feet and burned our hands and faces, there was not the danger of roasting alive that there would have been had we become entangled in the unburned brush."
"With our shovels we pulled down the burning brush, beat It out and covered loose earth over the burning leaves. Often when we had extinguished a long line of fire, the flames in front would work down hill more rapidly and get away from us, then work slowly around below the unburned brush and come rushing up the hill at us. Of course it would stop when it reached the burned part, but it would also commence to run slowly along the hill horizontally. Then we would have to rush down through the smoking stubs of branches and follow back up the line again."
"There was probably not more than one-quarter of a mile of front left to the fire when it was determined to make a bold effort by cutting through the brush low to stop the whole thing at once, so we began to marshal the available men and set them to work in some order. Paths were cut in front of the fire line, over a hundred willing hands aiding at the work, and soon a chain of such clearings was made, and as the roaring of the flames neared us, back fires were started from the paths and went rushing up the sides of the hill and met the down coming conflagration. As the fires approached each other the flames shot and leaped and Jumped at each other like fire giants In a tussel of death.
And death it was, for neither fire could cross the other, each having burned off all of the combustible material, leaving the ground clean. Then the villages seemed safe."
"Excitable persons who had removed their belongings commenced to gather them In. But forest fires are often in their most dangerous stage when they look the most harmless. Those who had fought fire all day had scarcely finished their suppers when darkness came on and with it a ruddy glare of light reflecting from Tamalpais, thrown there from some unseen core of fire, behind the Little Tamalpais range. The light grew and finally the flames again came over the ridge striking terror to the hearts of those, who had imagined themselves secure."
"It seemed worse this time than before, for the flames were in impregnable brush and the fierce gale which was blowing with stunning force was veering around so as to drive the fire on the towns. Darkness and impassable brush forbade a repetition of the work of the day, on drove the fire and there was nothing to be done to save the town from destruction. Acre after acre of timber was being turned to barren waste every minute and no help for it, when a phenomenon occurred such as I have never before witnessed, rain began to fall as it appeared out of an almost clear sky, but after our first surprise was over we examined the sky more carefully and discovered a long, thin gauze-like cloud, so thin that the stars could be seen through it. yet the rain continued."
"Now more and darker clouds began to raise and lend their aid to our first friend, the filmy cloud that had thinned almost to lmperceptibility. The rain as it increased in volume gained over the fire, and soon all that was left of two miles of raging furnace was here and there a deep red glow that looked like a blowhole In the lava of a crater. Yes, I am glad it's out, but I have seen two before. The great fire of 1880 which cleared every green leaf west of the top of Tamalpais, and the Larkspur fire of ten years since that burned half of the Baltimore Canyon and most of Corte Madera."
"And I will never feel safe about not seeing others until the Marin County authorities wake up to the idea that the county is growing and that it is time to give us roads and cut up this dangerous wilderness that is now of no use to any one and a danger to all."
S. B. Cushlng, president of the Mill Valley and Tamalpals Railroad, said: "I do not consider that there is any danger to life in any of these fires, and as far as experience has gone there has been comparatively little toss on improved property, such as dwellings. "Our railroad has had much to do with increasing the facilities for handling fire, as it enables us to land men fresh and ready for work on almost any ridge of the mountain, where formerly they had two hours of hard walking to get there and were all worn out and unfit to do anything when they arrived. I have now no trouble in landing men anywhere on fifteen minutes' notice, with all their tools and a safe method of escape besides."
D. E. Baker, superintendent of construction of the North Pacific Coast Railroad, has many' years of experience in flghting fire all along the line of the railroad from Sausalito to Cazadero, and to him it seemed an old story. "I never feel afraid" he said, "and have no troupe in extinguishing a fire if there are roadways or trails through the forest, so that I can get my men to it and handle them in a body. I usually try to work on the fire entirely by flanking. This is, the fire generally advances with the wind or up a grade with a more or less uniform line, such as ranks of troops would take.
Shovels are the main tools to be used, as the leaves and grass can be removed from the path of the fire and earth can be thrown on the burning embers." Charles Taylor, who came near being roasted alive Tuesday night, has rather strong opinions. He said: "The damage done by this fire was small compared with what it would have been had we not checked it as it crossed the ridge of 'Little Tamalpais,' but the property destroyed was sufficient in value to impress upon residents of the Tamalpais slope the great necessity of taking steps to prevent a repetition of such destructive flres. The past history of this part of Marin County shows that a large area Is burned over every few years, and the groves of majestic redwoods which adorn the valleys of the region are burned so often that many of the largest specimens have trucks that are like a tall column covered with a feathery growth.
Marin County's scenic beauty is due in large part to the sequoias, and to save these if for no other reason, should her forests be protected. "With the probability of a great fire occurring again at anytime, the property owners should organize and sustain an emergency fire company which could be called out on short notice and capably handled.
This could be accomplished by having each of the townsites, railroad and construction companies guarantee to have a certain number of men report at their respective depots for transportation. A fire chief and deputies for each squad of men should be appointed; in this way time would be saved and a better apportioning of men obtained than when each tries to save his own at the expense or to the neglect of other's property."
"Persons are not likely to send men to aid others when they have no guarantee that a like turn will be done for them, but if an organization were effected the plan would be simplified, the men would not have to be engaged so long and the expense would be divided among those for whose benefit it was incurred. The matter of transportation is also very important. It has been found that men unused to hill-climbing are fatigued getting to the fire that they are largely Incapacitated for effective work. The mountain railway was used to good advantage in landing men at proper elevations fresh and fit. "The methods employed In fighting forest and grass fires are very different from those employed In city fires. If, for instance, the fire Is in a canyon grown up with trees and underbrush, it is impossible to get within reach of the flames or to stand the heat If the place were accessible."
"It must be remembered also that in fighting these fires one is fortunate if he gets water enough to wet a sack, so a method must be resorted to which can be conducted at a distance from the flames and without water. "In fighting plain grass fires the men are supplied with wet sacks and shovels. The advancing flames are atttacked from both flanks and followed toward the tip. By this method the workmen are kept at the side of the flame and can run perpendicularly away from the dlrection of the advancing conflagration if the situation becomes dangerous. The flames usually travel in long, tonguelike shapes, more or less rounded at the advancing end, as the wind is brisk or light."
The tongue travels rapidly with the wind and very slowly on the sides. If the ground over which the fire Is burning is covered with grass only the burned part can be followed and fought from the rear. If the tongue is advancing up a hill back-firing is the surest way out of the difficulty. l was at one time when near the top of Little Tamalpais cut off entirely by the fire and only escaped by setting fire to the brush around me, and slowly dodging my own little fire until It had burned a place that I could set into and stand more secure from the great fire, which, instead of creeping and burning slowly, as they all do at the commencement, was rolling along with flames forty feet high in the ordinary brush and leaping above the highest treetops when it came to groves of them.
Fire travels up hill with great rapidity because the current of hot air generated ascends the slope of the hill. Thus the same tendency which leads the fire up one side of a mountain is utilized to intercept its advance at the top. In thick brush it is necessary to clear a path along parallel with the ridge and just below its crest on the side opposite that from which the fire is advancing and back-fire from this- if the wind is too strong to risk letting the main fire burn to its edge. Roads are after all the only way to fight such fires whether it be a regularly traveled road or one hacked out of the forest in a hurry for the purpose."
The women of Marin County also are heroic. In each of the forest fires that there have been some of them have done work that would have quailed many a manly heart, and they did it too without hope of reward or thought of even gratitude being expressed. In Larkspur and Corte Madera there are not many men around during the day. All the morning they drop away to the busy city, trainload, after trainload, until when 'the bankers' train departs at 10 o'clock or thereabouts the little towns are practically deserted.
So the women grow self-reliant and learn to deal with tramps, stray cows, and various complications that visit suburban villas. In the Warner Canyon, where the heavlest burning took place, the house was only saved by the Indefatigable exertions of all engaged, and Miss Warner and her sister; assisted by the two Miss Defenbachs and Miss Carmelita Boyle, kept the water running to wet the sacks with which the fire was beaten, cooked meals for the worn-out men and kept watch and ward to see that the only means or escape down the canyon should not be cut off by a retrograde movement of the fire. Miss Boyle would not admit that she or her companion girl firefighters had done anything unusual, and she seemed to think that going into a winding canyon with burning trees falling on all sides was one of the most ordinary things tnai could happen any day.
"1 went in about 9 o'clock Tuesday morning, she said, "and did not come out until the fire was nearly over. A one time, while my brother Hugh was in one of the smaller canyons on the south side of the Warner house, trying to stop the fire from getting down through the thick redwoods, some one set a back fire below him and he came nearly being imprisoned in there, except for my seeing it and sending a man up on the hill to give him warning. Even then he had to fight his way down through the trail, that is none too wide to walk through even when the brush that lines it is not on fire."
"Back fires may be useful in some places." said Hugh Boyle himself; "but I have seen little use for them, and the hardest work that I had during the two days of the fire was in preventing people from setting back fires and In escaping from them and putting them out, after they were set. The only fire that reached was one that was set as a back fire, but being in the heavy brush it became uncontrollable and had to burn Itself out. Talk about hot work, though. That day in Warner Canyon was one to be remembered. The smoke became so thick that nothing could be seen at times, and the thickness of the bank of It above us obscured the sun until every object took on a copper tint, and then all would get black again. Our worst fight was to save the water tank. The fire would keep running at it from every direction, and if its supports once burned and let the water out we would have had to let the house go."
When the fire was at its height and when every one else was either busy putting out fires or attempting to save property one little child devoted herself to praying in her own simple words for devine assistance, and, strange as it was, rain was soon falling from a small cloud overhead, although the rest of the sky was comparatively clear and starlit.
"I asked God to come and fight the fire, and at first I did not know how he was going to do it, but when I heard the soft raindrops falling. I just thanked him for answering my prayer." So little Dorothy Putnam Sheldon tells the story of her faith that was stronger than fear. Many times has rain been prayed for, but never was urgent necessity more speedily received. Her family had been camping in a beautiful redwood canyon on the northern slope of Little Tamalpais and had that morning been driven from their plcturesque tents by the threatening fire. All day long she had watched its smoke puffs hurrying along the ridges and the flames at times seeming to envelop the men that hewed and tugged at the thick brush clearing a trail in front of the advancing conflagration. To the child, deeply imbued with a sense of the responsIbilities in life, it seemed she, too. must do something to stay that awful fire. She could not see those men working so hard without help. Leaving her terror-stricken little friends to gaze awfully upon the fire she retired to her room to call upon a power that, as it seemed to her, alone could master the enemy.
The name of Tamalpais must have been given by reason of some former experience like the foregoing. Ta mal pals -Take care - Beware - Stay - l recollect- Bad country. That is the meaning in Spanish of the name of Tamalpais which has just shown by this fiery exhibition what could be done in the way of extempore volcanics. Less than 500 acres was burned over altogether, and Tamalpais has something like ten tons of combustlble greasewood and laurel to the acre. Some time the mountain will break in earnest. Then Ta mal pais - Take care - Beware - Stay - l recollect - Mischievous land.
The sides of Tamalpais and of its recumbent foothills are covered with a brush known to the earlier Californians as greasewood, a shrub that will burn when growing merely by applying a match to the green leaves. Mixed with it is the California laurel, which ignites less readily, but when once fired burns with a semi-explosive flash, owing to the large percentage of pungent essential oils in its foliage. About one hundred thousand tons of this inflammable material is spread around, laid on the hot hills to dry, as it were. Dried all summer, scorched in the fall and by the hot day of October 8 the woods were singed until ready to ignite with a match. Had the rain not fallen it would have taken more than a page to tell of that fire."