Research

Scope and Content Note

This map of the Adirondack Forest and Adjoining Territory indicates the location and extent of fires caused by locomotives during the year 1913. The laws of 1912 (Chapter 444) gave the Conservation Commission power to create fire districts and to appoint forest rangers to oversee each district. District forest rangers were given the power to sub-divide their districts as the public interests required and to employ additional forest rangers as necessary to patrol these areas. Forest rangers were required to report to the district forest ranger every fire that started or burned within their assigned region. Rangers were required to report the cause of each fire, extent and character of the land damaged, and the means used for fighting the fire. With the continued use of coal burning engines, locomotives were blamed in 1913 for causing sixty fires in the Adirondacks that destroyed over two hundred acres.