The evidence before the Public Service Commission shows that 40 per cent. of the entire area burned over in 1908 was burned over by fires started by the railroads. A careful analysis of the tabulated causes shows that the railroads, with all the extra care of efficient patrols, fire trains and equipment, are causing 15 per cent. of our serious fires.

Considering all the fires set, the railroads start 83 per cent.; from all other causes 17 per cent. The reason why a much smaller number in proportion to all the fires started on the railroad rights of way do damage than is done by fires started back in the forest, is very plain. The railroads are in the open, can be traversed easily; trains equipped to fight fire, supplied with water tanks, pumps and lines of hose can be employed. Fires started back in the forest are not easily discovered and are difficult to reach. With the accessibility of the roads, all the care given, patrols established, fire trains used, there were eighty-nine disastrous fires caused by the railroads and nearly two thousand five hundred incipient fires. It is little wonder that there is a line of burned dead trees along the railroad rights of way

clear through our great forest, and that many hundred thousand acres have been burned over by railroad fires. During the past two years this Commission has maintained along such parts of the lines of the Mohawk and Malone and Delaware and Hudson Railroads as run through forest sections, an organized fire patrol during the periods of danger. This patrol was organized by the State and maintained at State expense; but one-half of the cost was later charged to the railroads and paid by them to the State. The value of this service is beyond measure, although any patrol has its limitations. Its efficiency depends upon the kind of men employed, the distance each man has to travel, the nature of the vegetable growth along the line, the dryness of the soil, and, finally, the amount of sparks and coals scattered by locomotives. In order to prevent fires, the first step is to remove the cause, if possible, rather than to adopt some makeshift remedy. In the case of the railroads we find that hundreds of fires were caused by live coals escaping from the ashpans, and by hot cinders flying from the smokestacks. These cinders are usually hot enough to ignite the inflammable material along the right of way of the railroads. A thorough knowledge of the condition existing along the railroads has been fully ascertained in an investigation conducted by the Public Service Commission entitled:

"In the matter of The N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co., and Other Rail-
road Companies Whose Lines Run through Forest Lands in
Counties Containing Parts of the Forest Preserve, Ordered
to Show What Device and Precautions Are Now Used by
Them against Setting Fires upon Their Respective Lines in
Such Forest Lands, and Also to Show Cause Why They
and Each of Them Should Not Either Use Some Fuel upon
Their Locomotive Engines Which Will Not Give Out Sparks
and Set Fires, or Why Their Motive Power Should Not Be
Changed to Some Other Than Steam, Made upon Application
of the Forest, Fish and Game Commissioner."

About two hundred witnesses were examined by the Public Service Commission. The hearing was held at Tupper Lake November 5th and 6th; Saranac Lake November 23d and 24th; Saranac Lake December 21st and 22d, and Malone December 23d; Albany January 21st and February 3d, 10th and 16th. These witnesses consisted of firewardens, landowners,

patrolmen, lumbermen, men in the employ of the railroads, and experts in various lines. From them a large amount of testimony was secured as to the number of fires caused by railroads; extent of these fires, damages, remedies required, means of fighting fires, the attention given these matters by the railroads, value of patrols, etc.

The following railroads were investigated at the hearings: Mohawk and Malone Division, New York Central Railroad; Saranac Branch, New York Central Railroad; Chateaugay Division of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad. The attorneys representing the New York Central Railroad did not question the facts that the locomotives were the cause of hundreds of fires, but they did try to minimize the damages produced thereby. The Delaware and Hudson Railroad did not appear at their first hearing, which would seem to indicate they also admitted beyond question the fact that the engines were causing fires. The cause of fires from locomotives is not entirely a case of negligence on the part of the company in not supplying satisfactory screens and ashpans. It seems to be a conceded fact that an engine screened fine enough to prevent the escape of sparks so small that they will cool before reaching ground, interferes with the draft so that the required amount of steam cannot be generated. Ashpans are imperfect, and at their best are difficult to keep in a satisfactory condition. There is a matter, however, where the railroads have been negligent and have not complied with the provisions of the law. The law states that "all railroads running through forest land shall cut and remove from their right of way at least twice each year all inflammable material." Still, if this were done the damage from fire during the past season along the railroads would not have been prevented, although it might have been reduced, nor would it give adequate protection against fire so long as the locomotives run through our woodlands belching forth showers of red hot cinders and scattering large live coals from the ashpans.*

People not familiar with the Adirondacks can hardly understand that there are places where one can travel along highways for nearly twenty miles without seeing a house, and even along the railroads for half that distance. If a fire starts in one of these isolated places it is often discovered

*Since the above was written the Public Service Commission has granted the application of Commissioner Whipple and now the principal Adirondack railroads are burning oil from 8. A. M. to 8 P. M. during the months from April to October inclusive. — Ed.