FOREST SERVICE. 307 



■who may be needed when the fire danger comes the folloAving sum- 

 mer; financial and organization plans must be made which will con- 

 trol the number of fireguards employed for each unit and determine 

 just where each man is to be stationed. All the work covered by 

 these plans which can possibly be done during the winter must be 

 completed in order to lessen by that much the rush which begins 

 with the opening of spring work. 



During the spring months telephone lines and pasture fences must 

 be repaired, tools and equipment placed at points throughout the 

 forest which are likely to be most convenient when fires occur, guards 

 hired in advance for the season's work, training camps for the guards 

 arranged for and held, and final arrangements with cooperators 

 worked out. Then comes the giving of final instructions to guards 

 and their placement on lookout peaks and at guard stations. Wliat 

 happens after that, when careless users of the forest start fires or 

 lightning sows destruction, is not so much a struggle between fire 

 fighters and the flames as it is a test of the thoroughness and ade- 

 quacy of the thinking and preparatory work which have gone on 

 during the preceding months. 



As has been indicated in previous reports, the wide variety of 

 physical and human conditions encountered on the national forests, 

 together with the scattered location of forest officers, positively pre- 

 cludes the formulation of uniform detailed plans and instructions by 

 any central agency, no matter how expert it may be. Advance plan- 

 ning by the individual district ranger and forest supervisor is indis- 

 pensable to successful fire control in each ranger district and national 

 forest. 



Viewing fire control in this light, a steady but extremely impor- 

 tant development is occurring along two lines. First, there is grati- 

 fying activity on the part of the body of men concerned in the recog- 

 nition of significant fire facts and in acting upon them. This 

 promises well for early completion of the pioneer work. The most 

 important need at present is to bring forest officers together regu- 

 larlj^ in training camps for group discussion of the knowledge and 

 experience gained by each and for instruction by specialists in 

 various branches of fire control. Secondly, a heightened sense of 

 personal responsibility is to be found among forest officers. The 

 most effective means of promoting it is by inspection by trained men 

 which weighs the results obtained and fixes responsibility for both 

 the good and bad work discovered. 



Four 3'ears of experience with aerial forest-fire patrol has estab- 

 lished that regular daily patrol by planes does not yield sufficient 

 results to justify the cost. A given spot in the forest is under 

 observation for only 15 to 30 minutes of each patrol. A fire which 

 shows up just after the air patrol has passed must go unobserved 

 and unreported, so far as aerial detection is concerned, until the 

 next patrol, which may be the next day. The main dependence for 

 the detection of fires must be placed on lookout men stationed on 

 mountain peaks and towers. Nevertheless, planes have an impor- 

 tant place in fire control. Planes and pilots should be placed a few 

 hundred miles apart throughout California and the Northwestern 

 States. "\^nien fires get large a reconnaissance from the air is a very 

 useful method of securing vital information ; smoldering fires started 

 by lightning should be searched out by planes after bad electrical 



