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Nick Raeside worked at many jobs in the logging business but the one that he specialized in was starting fires—small, (hopefully) controlled fires used to clean up logging slash or debris-laden sites left after the merchantable timber had been removed. It was a crude way of reducing fire hazard and clearing the ground for replanting, and there was a constant danger that the controlled burns would get away and become real wildfires, destroying millions of dollars' worth of standing timber. Raeside found this challenge irresistible.