48 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



hot nights and the periods of hot winds 

 that made the season unusually difficult 

 in California. 



The abnormally early season is illus- 

 trated by one rather unusual fire. This 

 occurred on the west slope of the 

 Olympic Peninsula where, on May 6, 

 a spark from a fire, set by a road crew 

 to biu^n some debris on the right of 

 way for a road, caught in the moss in 

 the high tree crowns. Almost instantly 

 the fire spread from crown to crown, 

 killing the trees, although the conditions 

 on the ground were such that a fire 

 could not run at all. In this particular 

 fire it was necessary to fell many trees, 

 some of them from 6 to 10 feet in diam- 

 eter, before the fire could be stopped. 



DISTRIBUTION OF FIRES 



The bulk of the fires occurred in 

 western Montana, northern and central 

 Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Cali- 

 fornia. The seasonal conditions else- 

 where in the National Forests were 

 normal and but little difficulty was 

 encountered. The following table 

 shows the distribution of the fires: 



District No. of 



Fires 

 No. 1 (Montana, northern Idaho, 



North Dakota) 1,975 



No. 2 (Colorado, eastern Wyom- 

 ing, South Dakota, 

 Nebraska, Minnesota, 



Michigan) 279 



No. 3 (Arizona, New Mexico) . . . 509 

 No. 4 (Utah, Nevada, southern 

 Idaho, western Wyom- 

 ing) \... 327 



No. 5 (California) 1,468 



No. 6 (Oregon, Washington) .... 1,239 

 No. 7 (Arkansas, Florida, White 



Mts., Appalachians) .... 315 



Total 6,112 



CAUSES OF FIRES 



At the time of writing this article the 

 reports were not sufficiently complete 

 to give an accurate classification of the 

 fires according to their causes. A pre- 

 liminary survey of them shows that the 

 classification will not differ very mater- 

 ially from that of previous years. The 

 greatest departure from the normal list 



is the increase in the nuinber of fires 

 set by carelessness. This is due to the 

 very large increase in the number of 

 persons using the Forests for recreation. 

 The careless smoker is responsible for 

 most of these fires, and he is usually the 

 visitor to the forest, the hunter, fisher- 

 man, or city camper. The prospector, 

 settler, and woodsman are usually very 

 careful with fire. There were in certain 

 sections a good many fires caused by 

 clearing land on homesteads. In many 

 instances these were due to the State 

 officials issuing permits during the 

 dangerous period when no burning of 

 brush should have been allowed. In- 

 cendiarism is very localized. Malicious 

 setting of fires because of hostility to the 

 Government is now rare. Such incen- 

 diarism as occurs is due to the mistaken 

 "light burning" theory. Careful ob- 

 servation during the season showed that 

 fires are in only very rare instances set 

 to provide work in putting them out. 

 The danger of fires in September was 

 so great that the Governor of Oregon 

 consented to postpone the opening of 

 the hunting season. It is probable 

 that if he had not taken this action the 

 number of fires would have been very 

 much larger and the task of the Forest 

 Service in preventing injury to the 

 forest would have been greatly increased. 



THE RESULTS SECURED 



Of the entire 6,112 fires reported up 

 to December first, 4,954 or 81%, were 

 extinguished by the protective organiza- 

 tion before they had covered ten acres. 

 This is the best record in the history of 

 the Service. Preliminary estimates 

 show that the area burned over will 

 probably not exceed 300,000 acres. 

 The bulk of this area, probably 65%, 

 was on old burns, and on brush and 

 grass lands. In fighting the fires the 

 effort was to keep the fire as far as 

 possible out of green timber. The 

 effort was very successful, for the total 

 damage to green timber was probably 

 not over $450,000. This is in marked 

 contrast to 1910 when 6,500,000,000 feet 

 of timber was burned, valued at from 

 ten to fifteen million dollars. The 

 damage to. reproduction will probably 

 considerably exceed that to green tim- 



