PROTECTION OF FORESTS FROM FIRE 



591 



cendiary fire, just as in a city. In cer- 

 tain districts, also, lightning will con- 

 tinue to be an unavoidable cause of fire. 

 The management of the forest must, 

 therefore, be so organized that such 

 fires as do start may be extinguished as 

 quickly as possible. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE FOREST 



By organization of a forest for protec- 

 tion is meant the establishment of such 

 conditions that the chances of a fire are 

 reduced to a minimum, and that sucii 

 fires as are started may be extinguished 

 with the minimum of damage. Among 

 measures variously used to accomplish 

 this are : 



(i) The disposal of slash from log- 

 ging operations. 



(2) The development of roads, 

 trails, and fire lines. 



(3) The establishment of lookout 

 stations and telephone lines. 



(4) The organization of a protective 

 supervisory and fire-fighting force. 



(5) The control of insects which kill 

 trees and cause an accumulation of 

 dead, inflammable timber. 



No one measure is sufficient for ade- 

 quate fire protection. The disposal of 

 dry tops and brush reduces the danger 

 from fire, but there always remains 

 enough inflammable material in a forest 

 to make possible a damaging fire. There 

 must also be roads, trails, or fire lines 

 giving ready access to the forest, so that 

 fires may be located and reached. Nor 

 are these together sufficient, for there 

 must be a constant watching for fires 

 in order that they may be discovered 

 and attacked when they are small and 

 easily controlled and before they have 

 done much injury. All the measures 

 of fire protection are used together, and 

 supplement each other. 



Disposal of Slash 



The presence of dry tops and piles 

 of brush in the forest constitutes the 

 greatest menace from fires. The severity 

 of a fire, and hence the damage done, is 

 in direct proportion to the amount of 

 dry debris- on the ground. Still more 



serious is the fact that the presence 

 of this material makes it exceedingly 

 difficult to control and extinguish a fire. 

 If there is no material on the ground 

 other than the ordinary leaf litter, a 

 surface fire may be easily extinguished. 

 Old logs, dead and down trees, and 

 snags lying about on the ground are 

 also a great hindrance to fighting fires, 

 for when once ignited they are apt to 

 smolder for long periods, and so con- 

 tinue to threaten a further spread of 

 the flames. In many of our forests the 

 dead, standing snags constitute a dan- 

 gerous feature. If these are surrounded 

 by a dense stand of conifers, they often 

 carry the flames up into the canopy and 

 make a crown fire ; if isolated, they may 

 burn for days, and finally fall, throwing 

 sparks in all directions. The forester 

 aims to reduce the amount of this in- 

 flammable debris in a forest as rapidly 

 as possible, since the ''clean" stand is 

 easy to protect in comparison with a 

 stand that is littered with dry debris. 



Disposal of Brush and Debris 



A first practical step is to prevent a 

 further accumulation of debris in a 

 forest by disposing of the slash from 

 new cuttings. The application in all 

 forests of a uniform method for dis- 

 posing of this material would, how- 

 ever, be unwise. It should be clearly 

 understood that no fixed rule of pro- 

 cedure and no single method could pos- 

 sibly fit all the dift"erent forest condi- 

 tions in a country so large as the United 

 States. The method used in any given 

 case must be chosen after a careful 

 study, and must rest upon a complete 

 knowledge of the local conditions. Many 

 methods have been tried in the dis- 

 posal of brush, but those producing the 

 best results are the following : 



(i) Piling and burning as logging 

 proceeds. 



(2) Piling and burning in separate 

 operations. 



(3) Lopping the tops. 



(4) Lopping the tops and scattering 

 the brush. 



(5) Broadcast burning. 



