Hearts Aflame on AllMovie

In an era when natural resources still existed in abundance, it's a pleasant surprise to note that this melodrama had a conservationist theme. Luke Taylor (Frank Keenan) has retired wealthy from the lumber business but aches to find more pine to cut. When his idle son John (Craig Ward) asks for a start in business, the elder Taylor sends him to Michigan to move some logs. Luke hopes this will make a man of John, but instead he meets Helen Foraker (Anna Q. Nilsson), whose father has regrown ten thousand acres of pine. She wants to preserve the forest and turns down all of Luke's offers to buy it. John is won over to Helen's side. A con artist who has also tried unsuccessfully to swindle Helen out of the land has it set afire. Helen and John have to ride a train through the burning forest to get enough dynamite so they can blast a barrier in the fire's path. After they save Helen's pines, the old lumberman comes to an understanding with her and with his son.