Since the Forest Service was established many heroic incidents have occurred where rangers have risked their lives in preventing the spread of a conflagration, knowing that if it got beyond control it might cause untold damage. In fighting fires they use curious weapons. Water is seldom at hand, but in any case it is not of much value in stopping a forest fire, for it is useless to merely attempt to extinguish the flames; all efforts are concentrated upon preventing the fire from spreading, and so it is fought on the edge of the fire-line. The scene of a recent fire in West Kansas was near a town, and the rangers were assisted in their work by the anxious inhabitants. The fire was so close, and spread so fast, that it began burning up the dry prairie land on which the town was situated. Men, women, and all the children old enough to be of service hurried to the locality, while a dozen ploughs were loaded on wagons and hauled to a point on the prairie several miles from the line of burning vegetation. Then the ploughs were unshipped and the horses fastened to the implements, four to each. As fast as it could be driven each team dragged its plough through the ground, turning up the fresh soil and burying the dry stubble which afforded food for the flames. The furrows were dug about five feet apart, in ten parallel rows, each as long as it was calculated the fire-line would be, should it reach the spot. While the ploughmen were thus creating a sort of breastwork to resist the flames, the others were placed at intervals in front digging earth with hoes and shovels, forming piles to be used as ammunition to be thrown on the flames, or spread over the fields as a further obstacle to the advance of the conflagration. The children, supplied with branches, were stationed on the leeward side of the burning area to beat down any blaze which might spring up, thus preventing the fire-line from widening. [Illustration: AN "OLD BURN," SHOWING THE TERRIBLE HAVOC WROUGHT BY THE FIRE DEMON. _From a Photograph._] Although there were fully five hundred persons in this improvised fire brigade, they were unable to check the progress of the blaze until it had reached the ploughed area. The flames leaped over the first furrow, but the stubble and dried grass between it and the second one had been covered with earth, and only a part ignited. Realizing the desperate nature of the situation, the people devoted all their efforts to extinguishing the flames at this spot. As many as could procure them obtained branches and beat savagely at the blaze, while others used their hoes and shovels, some literally running into the fire in their efforts to stamp it out.