BURNING OF DEAD AND DOWN TREES 507 



stumpage price obtained for National Forest timber, so that the Forest 

 Service in reality pays for the work. Timber sale areas, however, 

 constitute but a small portion of the timber in the National Forests. 

 There are important and valuable bodies of timber that should be 

 protected by measures of prevention, but it is obvious that wholesale 

 felling of snags is out of the question. Inadequate appropriations have 

 prevented any extensive use of this method of fire prevention. Emer- 

 gency funds are available for suppression of tires, but not for preven- 

 tion. It therefore seems appropriate that some attention should be 

 given to the prevention of fires. Some advocate burning over the 

 forest as a preventive measure, but upon investigation is has been found 

 that only in exceptional cases and on favorable areas is this method 

 practicable or successful. 



In California there are on the average 2.5 standing dead trees and 

 snags, and at least an equal number of down trees and logs per acre. 

 Five trees per acre, that are a danger to the health and very existence 

 of the forest, constitute a menace that cannot be overlooked. If the 

 forest can be cleared of this class of useless and detrimental material, 

 the protection work would be simplified to a great extent ; a decrease 

 in inflammable material will have been accomplished; prevention will 

 have come to the assistance of suppression and better protection will 

 then be assured. 



With the idea of working out a method of snag disposal that would 

 be cheap enough to be usable, an experiment in burning down the stand- 

 ing dead trees was carried out during the latter part of October and 

 forepart of November, 1920, on the Modoc National Forest in north- 

 eastern California. The experiment was extended after work started 

 and applied to the down trees as well. These outnumbered the stand- 

 ing ones on the area where the work was done. 



The burning was done in a pure stand of Western Yellow Pine, 

 under east side conditions, averaging about 15,000 feet per acre. The 

 land was level with very little brush, but the area contained a very 

 good stand of reproduction, especially in the open areas and in the 

 neighborhood of dead trees and windfalls. Rain had fallen a few 

 days before, and during the experiment the nights were cold and the 

 days moderately warm. Everything was favorable for the work, but 

 conditions were not abnormal for the region at that time of the vear. 



