San Francisco water . ooking; like a blood-red disk with a brown week later the editor went over theground and reported that a space nearlytwelve miles square had been completely de-nuded of underbrush, the trees burned,fences and cordwood destroyed, and nothingbut a black patch left to maik the placewhere a large forest of timber and under-growth had stood. This fire destroyed amile of Spring Valley flume. x^fter this big fire on the San Andreswatershed, it became the custom of theCompany to plow a fire-guard along allgrowing timber, and to burn the grass mithe watershed east of
San Francisco water . ooking; like a blood-red disk with a brown week later the editor went over theground and reported that a space nearlytwelve miles square had been completely de-nuded of underbrush, the trees burned,fences and cordwood destroyed, and nothingbut a black patch left to maik the placewhere a large forest of timber and under-growth had stood. This fire destroyed amile of Spring Valley flume. x^fter this big fire on the San Andreswatershed, it became the custom of theCompany to plow a fire-guard along allgrowing timber, and to burn the grass mithe watershed east of San Andres and Crys-tal Spiings lakes. For better control, grasswas burned before it began to dry, and pre-ferably at night. A few years later, the better to safeguardthe beauty of the countryside, it was decidedto fi e-guard along all roads, and burn allthe grass between the roads and the fire-guards at opportune times. But this methodinjured many growing trees, so it was laterabandoned. Now, each spring, the Company. A forest ranger demonstrates a flame-thrower used in back-firing, fof Spring Valley Water Company benefit of W. B. La 16 SAN FRANCISCO WATER April, 1925 plows with a disk plow, and harrows, astrip about ten feet wide along all roads,highways, planted areas, and growing tim-ber where possible. Since this course was adopted, there havebeen no serious fires on the property. True,there have been numerous occasions when alighted match or burning tobacco, carelesslythrown away, ignited the dry grass; but thefire burned to the fire-guard and stopped. Inone or two instances, owing to high wind,the fire has passed the fire-guard, but for-tunately was observed at the start and ex-tinguished before it did serious damage. Where the wooden flumes of the Companypass through timbered country, it is custom-ary, every two years, to remove all the grow-ing timber for a distance of fifty feet onboth sides of the flumes, and on the lowerside of the flumes to remove all grass andweed
Size: 1854px × 1347px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectwatersupply, bookyear
