Most of the necessary legislative measures for preventing forest fires already exist. The National Forest force is seeking merely to obtain a strict enforcement of existing laws. Railroads are required to use spark-arresters on their locomotives and to provide for keeping their rights-of-way free from inflammable material. Logging camps must also prevent the destruction of National Forest timber by fire by using spark-arresters on all logging engines. The Forest officers are ever on the alert for the detection and apprehension of campers for leaving fires unextinguished and incendiaries for starting fires willfully. These careless individuals are arrested by them without warrant, either under the Federal laws, if the fire occurred on National Forest lands, or under the State law, if it occurred outside of government lands.
Educational measures are for the purpose of educating both the local forest-using public and the general public who may travel through the Forests in the careful use of fires in the forests. Forest officers, especially Rangers, come into personal touch with local residents and users, that is, the ranchers, stockmen, business men, loggers, campers, hunters, fishermen and others. Such people are often reminded by personal appeals by the Forest officers. Most of them have learned by this time, because of having been called upon to help fight fires at one time or another, and having gotten a taste of the result of other people's carelessness. Many written appeals are also sent out by the Supervisor and are slipped into the envelopes when grazing permits and other official documents are mailed. One of these written appeals, and probably the one that has been used most widely, is known as the six rules for the prevention of fires in the mountains:
1. Matches.--Be sure your match is out. Break it in two before you throw it away.
2. Tobacco.--Throw pipe ashes and cigar or cigarette stumps in the dust of the road and stamp or pinch out the fire before leaving them. Don't throw them into the brush, leaves, or needles.
3. Making camp.--Build a small camp fire. Build it in the open, not against a tree or log, or near brush. Scrape away the trash from all around it.