The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-09-25
FOREST FIRES
CAUSED BY SMOKERS
U. S. Forest Service is Preparing Sta
tistics to Show What Percentage
of Loss Due to Them.


As basis for securing, if possible,
cooperation of tobacco users in the
reduction of losses from forest fires,
the forest service of the United States
department of agriculture is prepar-
ing TO gather information as to the
extent to which fires in the woods are
due to smokers.
I'VE have been gathering statistics
for number of years as to the causes
of forest fires" said Acting Forester
sherman to-day in outlining the plan,
but these statistics have not shown
under a separate heading fires known
TO have their origin in tobacco smok-
ing. All fires started by hunters and
fishermen, for example, are common
ly classed as campers fires; those
started by loggers, to lumbermen; and
so on. From now on our men in
the field making reports will be asked
to indicate, so far as they are able,
how many fires are started by smok
ers. Undoubtedly, the general use of
cigarettes has tended to make the task
of forest protection more difficult. In
those days when woodsmen and man
ual laborers usually smoked pipes the
danger from smoking was relatively
small.
"A burning cigarette end seems such
small matter that relatively few peo-
pie trouble to be sure that it is out
before tossing it away. In the west
ern national forests, where in the sum
mer every spark of fire is particular
~ dangerous on account of the dryness
OF the vegetation, our forest rangers
have again and again traced fires back
to the point of origin and found there
a cigarette butt, from which the fire
had spread fan-wise down the wind.
Some of these cigarette butts lay by
the roadside where they had been
tossed from the cars Of AUTOMOBILE !
lists.
Lumber companies sometimes for ;
bid smoking in the woods. Restrictive |
measures of this character would not !
be called for if smokers had a sufi- /
GENTLY keen sense of responsibility, !
and the habit of care not to drop |
fire in any form"
1t is not merely in the forests. &C. !
cording to the department of agricul-
ture, that smoking is the cause of /
special fire risk The bureau of chem
istry of the department has in recent
years been studying the dust explo-
sions which are often the cause of very (.
great losses of property in grair ele-
yators, -four mills, etc, and finds many
blazes due to smoking. The education
al campaign conducted by the bureau
in the effort to lessen fire losses from
this cause has had for one of its i'm
portant lines of effort bringing home
to the ubiquitous smoker in grain ele-
vators, -four mills, etc. the urgent
need for care.
The secretary Of agriculture adj
dressed letter to a number of leading
tobacco manufacturers not long ago,
out that smokers cause many
forest fires, that single fire may cost
he government thousands of dollars
or fire fighting, to say nothing of the
imber burned up and the landscape
iesolated, and that by enclosing in to-
,acco packages some sort of warning
against carelessness with fire. the COM
,anies could materially aid in the cam
,aign for forest protection. While
most of the companies thus addressed
made no reply, one of the largest to- |
,acco companies in the country an +
wered favorably and requested a sug
,estion for a slip which might be t