AERIAL FOREST FIRE PATROL IN OREGON AND 

 CALIFORNIA 



By Charles W. Boyce 

 Observer in Charge Oregon Patrol, IQ20 



To those who live in the settled parts of the country the matter of 

 forest-fire protection is largely suppression. A fire of slight conse- 

 quence can hardly be started before someone sees it and reports it to 

 the one responsible for its suppression. Here detection is not an 

 important matter ; it is taken care of automatically through the natural 

 cooperation of people living in close harmony. 



In the large forested regions there is a vast difference. There are 

 few people living in the woods ; there are large areas in which no one 

 lives and through which no one passes excepting the stray hunter and 

 the forester. The means of transportation and communication are 

 few. The nature of the country is usually mountainous, wooded and 

 difficult for the casual passerby to see the surrounding region. LTnder 

 these conditions, it is plain, that the sighting of fires can not be left to 

 chance. An organization must be established whose sole duty is to 

 find these fires as soon after they occur as is humanly possible. Herein 

 lies the importance of detection as related to the forest fire problem. 



It is obvious that every fire starts in a small way, no large area 

 suddenly flares up in flames at once. The fire starts from one of any 

 number of causes in one place from which it spreads according to 

 the conditions, gradually gaining volume and covering an increasingly 

 larger area. It naturally follows that the quicker action in the form 

 of efficient work by a crew of fire fighters is brought to bear upon a 

 fire, the greater will be the opportunities for its quick suppression at a 

 minimum damage. However, this quick action can not be supplied 

 until it is known that there is a fire and where it is. 



The forest protective agencies of the West have realized for a long 

 time the importance of prompt detection, consequently they have 

 expended much effort in establishing a system of lookouts on high 

 and commanding peaks whose sole duty consists in watching the sur- 

 rounding country for the tiny wisp of smoke denoting the forest fire 

 in infancy. In 1919 a new adjunct was added to this detection sys- 



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