It rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially at night.

It lasts, however, only a few seconds, vanishing with magical rapidity, to be succeeded by others along the fire-line at irregular intervals, tree after tree, upflashing and darting, leaving the trunks and branches scarcely scarred.

The heat, however, is sufficient to kill the tree and in a few years the bark shrivels and falls off.

Forests miles in extent are thus killed and left standing, with the branches on, but peeled and rigid, appearing gray in the distance like misty clouds.

Later the branches drop off, leaving a forest of bleached spars.