G96 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



of the crowns. The nearness and intensity of the flame and duration 

 of heat was what caused damage to the bole, the damage, of course, 

 being in inverse proportion to the thinness of bark. But the damage 

 to crowns was due to the nearness and height of the column of flame 

 rather than to its duration. 



Pulled tops — that is, tops left intact — were found to throw columns 

 of flame to considerable heights and distances in a slash fire as long as 

 the needles remained on the branches. The disposition of the needles, 

 not the decay of the wood, was evidently the important consideration 

 in preventing injury to crowns of live trees. The needles, as long as 

 they stay on these tops, constitute an extreme hazard, which can only 

 be combatted by moving them far enough from live trunks so that the 

 flames cannot be blown into the tops. When the danger from the 

 needles is gone, the remaining risk from the burning of the wood can 

 be controlled. In fighting a fire burning through pulled or intact tops, 

 it is practically impossible to handle them or construct a temporary fire 

 line through them and larger areas are burned. The fire travels faster 

 and is more dangerous than if the tops are lopped. 



When tops are properly lopped, the first winter's snow packs the 

 needles close to the ground and the damage from high flames disap- 

 pears. The tops being cut are more easily handled for a temporary 

 fire line. In areas with abundant reproduction the lopped tops give 

 better protection to the young trees. The crown, with its inflammable 

 needles, can be trimmed out, the branches laid flat or scattered in open- 

 ings, and the reproduction freed from this tangle. 



But the greatest argument in favor of lopping and scattering lay in 

 the simplifying of administrative procedure. This question came up 

 this summer in concrete form on the Carson National Forest. Here, 

 in an effort to draw up instructions which required the minimum ex- 

 pense consistent with fire protection, the practice was to require piling 

 and burning on small sales in Douglas fir, while in yellow pine lopping 

 was required except where tops lay at a distance of 20 feet from the 

 nearest live trees, when they need not be handled at all. The combina- 

 tion of systems made the instructions cumbersome and inconsistent in 

 application. The small man was required to do more clean-up work 

 than large operators, and neither the lumbermen nor the rangers were 

 ever sure they were doing things right. The instructions had to be 

 essentially modified in application to the Douglas-fir type. 



On the Santa Fe Forest it was found that a consistent policy of top 

 lopping was being practiced on large and small sales alike and in all 

 types with great success. The one point needed was to determine just 



