. American forestry. Forests and forestry. Pack Train in the Bitterroot Mountains trical storms and almost incessant high winds. By the fifteenth of July serious fires were burning on nearly every For- est west of the continental divide, and many more starting every day. EMERGENCY FORCE AND EQUIPMENT By the middle of July over three thousand extra laborers were employed on the fire lines in Northwestern Mon- tana and Northern Idaho. This force had been secured, equipped, and organ- ized for work in the space of from two to three weeks. The labor markets of Missoula, Spokane, and Butte had been
. American forestry. Forests and forestry. Pack Train in the Bitterroot Mountains trical storms and almost incessant high winds. By the fifteenth of July serious fires were burning on nearly every For- est west of the continental divide, and many more starting every day. EMERGENCY FORCE AND EQUIPMENT By the middle of July over three thousand extra laborers were employed on the fire lines in Northwestern Mon- tana and Northern Idaho. This force had been secured, equipped, and organ- ized for work in the space of from two to three weeks. The labor markets of Missoula, Spokane, and Butte had been called upon, and furnished the bulk of the men. Tools, thousands of mat- tocks, shovels, and axes, were drained from the mercantile stores wherever available, until their supplies were ex- hausted and special orders had to be rushed through in order to complete the equipment of the men. The country had been scoured for pack animals, and trains of from 5 to 40 horses each secured to transport the supplies and equipment of the fire fight- ers into the hills. The heavily tim- bered country afforded practically no feed for the horses, and the packing of horse feed, besides the supplies and equipment, had to be provided. Expe- rienced packers had to be obtained to handle these trains in the hills. Any one familiar with western mountains will appreciate the importance of this one item alone. The inaccessibility of the territory lying immediately contiguous to the Idaho-Montana divide in the Clear- water and Coeur d'Alene Forests made it necessary to equip the pack trains in Montana and have them drop over the divide on to the Clearwater and St. Joe River drainages. Trails from the Mon- tana side were accessible, but when the top of the divide was reached, in most cases trails had to be cut to get the pack With this done and 635 horses through. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectforestsandforestry
