against trees or logs whence they will be sure to
spread.)

3. Don't build fires in leaves, rotten wood or sawdust, or pine needles.

4. Don't build fires against large or hollow logs where it is hard to
see that they are not put out. They eat in.

5. Don't build fires under low evergreens, or where a flame may leap to
a branch, or sparks light upon a branch.

6. In windy weather and in dangerous places camp-fires should be
confined in trenches, or an open spot be chosen and the ground first
cleared of all vegetable matter.

7. Never leave a fire, even for a short time, until you are certain that
it is out. Wet it thoroughly, to the bottom, or else stamp it out and
pile on sand or dirt.

8. Never pass by a fire in grass, brush, or timber, which is unguarded
and which you can see is likely to spread. Extinguish it; or if it is
beyond your control, notify the nearest ranch, town, or forest official.

These regulations are for Boy Scouts to remember and to observe, no
matter where the trail leads.

CHAPTER XIV

Note 53, page 161: A fire line is a cleared strip, sometimes only ten,
sometimes, where the brush is thick, as much as sixty feet wide, running
through the timber and the bushes, as a check to the blaze. An old
wood-road, or a regular wagon-road, or a logging-trail, or a pack-trail
is used as a fire line, when possible; but when a fire line must be
cleared especially, it is laid from bare spot to bare spot and along
the tops of ridges. A fire travels very fast up-hill, but works slowly
in getting across. Scouts should remember this important fact: The
steeper the hill, the swifter the fire will climb it.

There are three kinds of forest fires: Surface fires, which burn just
the upper layer of dry leaves and dry grass, brush, and small trees;
ground fires, which burn deep amidst sawdust or pine needles or peat;
and crown fires, which travel through the tops of the trees. Fires start
as surface fires, and then can be beaten out with coats and sacks and
shovels, and stopped by hoe and spade and plow. The ground fire does not
look dangerous, but it is, and it is hard to get at. Crown fires are
surface fires which have climbed into the trees and are borne along in
prodigious leaps by the wind. They are the most vicious and the worst to
fight.

The duty of Scouts is to jump upon a surface fire and kill it before it
becomes a sly ground fire or a raving crown fire.

Note 54, page 171: Even the best surgeo