586 Forestry Quarterly. 



2. Forest Fire Service ofificers should have not only power to 

 arrest without warrant, but to prosecute and secure convictions in 

 a summary manner before any justice of the peace. This not only 

 when a person has actually committed, but when there is a reason- 

 able suspicion that he has committed or is about to commit an 

 offense against the fire laws. 



3. Fire rangers should have authority to trespass in case of 

 necessity, to build back fires, and place guards to prevent the 

 breaking out again of fires that have been extinguished. 



4. Fire rangers should have power to command witnesses with 

 a view of finding out cause, origin and nature of fire and the 

 damages. 



5. In the estimation of damages the cost of reforestation should 

 be included. 



G. Organization. 



There is no hope of any adequate result of legislation unless 

 sufficient and efficient machinery and organization exists to apply 

 it. With the attitude of the people as it is, a supreme effort in 

 the beginning will be necessary to change that attitude; then, 

 when better habits have been inculcated the machinery may be 

 considerably reduced. 



Such organization must be of a central, permanent and fixed 

 character, as only the government can institute, but it may act 

 very well in co-operation with municipalities, local boards, timber 

 limit holders, private woodland owners, or associations with 

 similar interests. Where the government is the largest owner 

 and has therefore the largest interest, it should naturally take the 

 lead ; but even where this is not the case, the broad scope of 

 governmental interest, and the economy which comes from 

 patrolling, irrespective of ownership, makes a provincial organi- 

 zation preferable. Yet that even private owners or timberlimit 

 hoders alone could cheaply and efficiently protect their own hold- 

 ings is shown by the Forest Fire Associations in the United States, 

 of which there are ten in the West. 



The Washington State Forest Fire Association is one in which 

 owners of from twenty acres up to hundreds of thousands of 

 acres are clubbing together and assessing themselves by acreage 

 for co-operative fire patrol. A chief fire warden is at the head of 

 the organization. The territory is divided into districts, each having 

 its local patrolmen. Eight to twelve districts are formed into a 

 group, with an inspector for each, whose duty it is to travel 

 through the districts in his group, supervise the patrolmen, em- 

 ploy additional ones where necessary, and in general keep the 

 machinery moving. The state merely clothes the officials of the 

 association with authority and places, as in Idaho, its own hold- 

 ings under the system. With such an organization, in 1909, the 

 driest season in Washington State for 41 years (except perhaps 



