824 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



west, no adequate fire protection has yet been established. In some 

 parts of New England and the Southern Appalachians, Southeastern 

 Alaska, and the swamps of the South, fires have not done serious 

 damage, because of climatic or topographic checking factors. 



In the areas first named the cost of fire protection which really pro- 

 tects is not known. Approximately a million dollars has been spent on 

 one National Forest in Idaho in the past decade in fire prevention and 

 suppression, and yet two-thirds of the area of the Forest is devoid of 

 live timber as a result of the fires in 1910 and 1919. 



On the west side of the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana and Idaho, 

 in one of the most remarkable timber regions of the country, nearly 

 3y2 million acres have been burned on five National Forests since 1908. 

 The biennial report of tjie State Geologist of North Carolina reports 

 that in the 10-year period, 1910-1919, approximately 395,000 acres were 

 burned over yearly, or nearly 4,000,000 acres in the 10 years. The 

 forest area of the State is given as 20,000,000 acres. 



In Louisiana in 1917, according to the State reports, 5,568,940 acres 

 out of 28,000,000 were burned. 



In Texas in 1919, 1,207,824 acres were burned out of a total forested 

 area of approximately 13,000,000 acres. 



In Washington, the report of the State Fire Warden indicates that 

 in 1920 the total burned over of "brush, cut-over, and old-burn" land, 

 outside the National Forests, in the Douglas fir region of the western 

 side of the State, was 52,221 acres. In 1919 the area of such land 

 burned was undoubtedly yearly 200,000 acres. According to Kirkland 

 (University of Washington, Forest Club Annual, 1921), the total area 

 of unimproved cut-over lands west of the Cascade Mountains in Wash- 

 ington is about 3,000,000 acres. At the present rate of burning, that 

 entire area, or its equivalent in area, will be burned over in about 

 24 years. 



The forester for one of the largest timber owning companies in the 

 sugar pine-yellow pine region of California reports that 95 per cent of 

 all their slash land has been burned. 



In Michigan, in 1919 (a bad fire year), the Biennial Report of the 

 State Game, Fish, and Forest Fire Commissioner, of the Public Domain 

 Commission, states that 418,419 acres were burned. Other reports, 

 however, give it as nearer a million acres. The forest area "protected" 

 by the State is approximately 20,000,000 acres. 



