The Extraordinary Adirondack Journey of Clarence Petty by Angus Christopher;LaBastille Anne;

Author:Angus, Christopher;LaBastille, Anne;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815608707
Publisher: Syracuse University Press

CHAPTER 14

Ranger at Large

clarence was about to enter his most productive and influential period as a conservationist. From the close of his eleven years as district ranger at Cranberry Lake in 1957 until several years after his first retirement from government service in 1971, he would hold a bewildering number and variety of positions.

His particular blend of skills was in such demand that he was constantly being “loaned” from one department to another, and his job title underwent numerous inventive alterations. As pilot, member of the Inter-State Fire Compact, liaison to the Joint Legislative Committee on Natural Resources, and forest preserve specialist on the staffs of Governor Rockefeller’s Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks and the Adirondack Park Agency, virtually anything of substance that went on in the Adirondacks had Clarence Petty’s hand in it.

By the end of the 1940s the Conservation Department had an array of aircraft. There was a Ryan Navion (low wing) used for forest fire control, two Stearman N2S-4s used for aerial spraying, a Stinson L-5 for the Division of Fish and Game, and an amphibious Grumman G-21 “Goose,” which was used for everything from fish stocking and hauling freight to transporting executives around the state.1 As a pilot with considerable experience, Clarence’s advice was often sought concerning such things as aerial fish stocking of remote lakes and forest fire spotting and control.

In 1947, after a huge fire burned much of Bar Harbor, Maine, the United States Forest Service decided it had to have a different system for fighting a fire of such magnitude. During the war, conservation had been one of the first areas to suffer severe cutbacks. Virtually all activities of the state’s Division of Lands and Forests had been put on hold as resources were diverted for military purposes. The one exception was fire control. Faced with the specter of sabotage, the fire control system so laboriously put into operation over many years had to be maintained. As a result, forest rangers and fire observers had been deferred in most cases from military service.

In the aftermath of both the war and the fire in Bar Harbor, it was now clear that this fire control system needed updating. “A big fire is just like a combat operation,” says Clarence.

You’ve got to have a lot of personnel, not only to fight the fire but to man a headquarters unit to administer the whole operation. The Forest Service said what you need up here is a combined effort of the northeastern states, so that if you have a fire in any one of the states, the others would come in and help.

In 1949 the Northeastern Interstate Forest Fire Protection Compact was approved. I had to go up to the unit at Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, every year where the headquarters of the Forest Service was and spend two weeks writing up procedures for the big fires. We’d take what we learned back to Laconia, New Hampshire, and put on training for the eastern states.

Then Canada heard about it and they started sending representatives from New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.

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