TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



69 



association operates covers about 200,- 

 000 acres, while tlie membership of the 

 organization represents holdings to the 

 amount of about 60,000 acres ; and 

 while, said the speaker, this area is 

 insignificant as compared with the vast 

 expanses in other parts of the country, 

 the members of the association believe 

 that its practice and policy may be fol- 

 lowed advantageously in much larger 

 fields. Mr. Hodge spoke of the prac- 

 tice of berry pickers, who every year 

 burn ofit" the hillsides, to promote the 

 growth of huckleberry bushes, and he 

 told of the carelessness of campers, 

 picnic parties, hunters and others, who 

 pay no attention to the damage that 

 may be caused by carelessly left fires. 

 He spoke, also, of the part played by 

 railroads in spreading forest and brush 

 fires. He then detailed the plan on 

 which the association operates, stat- 

 ing that advantage was taken of 

 the Pennsylvania law which pro- 

 vides that on application of twenty 

 taxpayers, the courts shall appoint 

 deputy constables who have all the 

 authority of fire wardens. Under 

 this plan, he said, the association now 

 has fire wardens in the nine townships 

 in Monroe County in which the associa- 

 tion operates. Notices printed on 

 strong muslin are posted along road- 

 sides and in conspicuous places in the 

 woods, warning against the starting of 

 fires and offering fifty dollars reward 

 for information that will lead to the 

 arrest and conviction of parties guilty 

 of allowing a fire to gain headway. 

 This ofl:"er of a reward was given wide 

 newspaper publicity, and was afterward 

 increased to $100; while the associa- 



tion has pledged itself to pay with all 

 possible promptness the men called out 

 by fire wardens to fight fires. As a 

 result of the association's activities 

 along these and similar lines, fires are 

 of much less frequent occurrence, aie 

 fai more readily handled and extin- 

 guished, and the general results bear 

 full testimony to the value of the work. 

 The speaker said that so far the total 

 expenses of the association have been 

 $2,151.37, an average of about $358.56 

 per annum. 



At the conclusion of Mr. Hodge's 

 address, Mr. Luebkert read an extract 

 from a letter written by Mr. George 

 S. Long, president of the Washington 

 State Forest Fire Protective Associa- 

 tion. The extract follows: 

 • 



"1 wish to add that to-day there is a 

 gathering in Spokane, Washington, of he 

 representatives of the Forest Fire Associa- 

 tion in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and 

 Montana, and this gathering contemplates 

 the organization of a Fire Protective 

 League, which will embrace all of the terri- 

 tory west of the Rocky Mountains, and we 

 feel that we are inaugurating one of the 

 largest movements that has yet been entered 

 upon on the Pacific Slope for forest pro- 

 tection, and it is the unanimous sentiment 

 of this gathering that forest conservation 

 and the forest fire protection stands hand 

 in hand equally as the most important prob- 

 lem that concerns the people of the Pacific 

 Slope." 



Mr. Frank H. Lamb, of the Wash- 

 ington State Board of Forestry, was 

 to have read a paper on "Forest Fire 

 Protection on the Pacific Northwest." 

 Owing to business affairs, Mr. Lamb 

 was unable to be present, but his paper 

 was read by Mr. Luebkert, and the 

 paper is given here complete. 



PAPER BY FRANK H, LAMB 



A STATEMENT of the work that has 

 been accomplished in fighting forest 

 I fires in the territory embraced in the 

 states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, 

 must be of unusual interest in this meeting, 

 in view of the fact that in these three states 

 there is fifty per cent, of the standing timber 

 of the United States. A significant fact is 

 that this work, although still in its in- 

 fancy, is probably as well organized and 

 as liberally supported as similar work in 



any part of the United States. The forests 

 of Washington and Oregon have been drawn 

 upon for the past twenty or thirty years to a 

 limited extent to supply the timber necessi- 

 ties of less favored regions, yet the lumber 

 industry of the Northwest as an important 

 factor in the lumber industry of the country, 

 is of comparatively recent growth. In the 

 other lumber states of the East and middle 

 Northwest, the work of protecting the forests 

 from fire has been taken up only after the 



