Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-11-21
4 CYCLONE 0F FLAME
Fires In Bamboo Forests Are the
 Fiercest Known.
SWEEP ON A MILE A MINUTE.

 Like tho Roar, the Roll and the Rattle
 of Great Battle Is the Noise of the
 Exploding Stalks That Sometimes
 Shoot High Into the Air.
 When the forests are afire, when the smoke makes dusk at noon and reddens the harvest moon thousand miles away, there Is the measure of a conaagration. When the prairies burn, as they used to before farms had crept in upon the endless miles of grass, there was fire which ran like mad and left behind 1t blackened trail of death. If one could combine the speed of the prairie fire with the tumult of the blazing forest, that would be a fire indeed.
 Such a combination is effected when the bamboo groves catch fire. The bamboo is but a grass, a grass with the height of tree, swaying stems reaching 100. even 15O, feet in air.
 In Cambodia, where the bamboo groves along the rivers cover the space of forests, 1t is no unusual thing for fires to break out and sweep all before them for many miles. If the summer has been dry the bamboo turns scar and infia mmable as any grass.
 All that is needed is a spark; then ruin runs red. It is not necessary to rely upon the carelessness of the woodsman to start the blaze. The bamboo can kindle itself
 Let two swaylrg stalks of dry bam- boo be set in motion by the breeze, let one rub across the other long enough and the friction will set,the spark, and the long dry leaves will feed the flame. It is known that many fires of the bamboo forests thus originate. Per haps it was from observing such a sight that primitive man learned the Promethean secret. That theory has been advanced
 As soon as flame in the bamboos has crept to the level of the tossing tips 1t spreads Nike wildfre. The wind carries sheet of flame along the grove at tremendous speed. Some observers say that such fires have been seen to move forward at the rate of more than mile a minute. Seen from below, 1t looks as if she sky had burst into an instant flash of fame frs -t
 From such burst of fire there could be no escape. Fortunately 1t passes high overhead at the tops of the bam- boos. It serves as a warning to the traveller who may be making his way along some one of the water courses by which the forest is intersected. The bamboo itself Is almost an obstacle to travel of any sort It is we'll nigh i'm possible to force way through 1t ex- cept by the slow and toilsome labor of hewing out path.
 The fire in the great trunks moves more slowly, and if warning be taken it may be possible to sink ones boat and throw up wet herbage and clay against the bank of the stream to pro- vide shelter until the furnace blast has blown by. Such fire in the bam- boo has not only the speed of the prai- rie fire on its sweep overhead. but it has the same volume of fuel as is found in any forest fire. It combines the two types.
 Bamboo forest fires have another quality which is all their own. They bang and rattle with thunderous crashes, as of artillery fire, without cessation. ee s..-
 The stalks of these tree bamboos are frequently more than foot in diame- ter. Near the ground the joints are close together: in the younger growth the nodes may be several feet apart. But, long or short as they may be, each joint of the sun dried bamboo is a tightly sealed chamber filled with air The partitions between the cavities are singularly tough; the outside rind of the stalks is almost pure flint.
 When the blast of the flame sweeps onward the air in the stalks upon which 1t is driven is suddenly heated to very high temperature. The resid- uum of moisture which may be in the stems is immediately transformed into steam and at once subjected to super heating, thus becoming violent explo- slve. AS the hot breath of the flame becomes hotter these joints burst with loud cannon discharges.
 Sometimes the force of the explosion near the roots is so great as to shoot the stalk like javelin high into the air. where 1t flashes into torchlike flame and is carried by the wind to spread wider disaster. The bursting of the smaller joints is like the roll and rattle of rifles and machine guns. The effect is that of battle hotly contest ed.-Washington Post.
 The Weiuht and the Day,