SOME SUGGESTIONS ON BRUSH DISPOSAL. 

 By Elers Koch. 



On a large percentage of the Forest Service timber sales fire 

 protection has been insured by piling and burning the slash, which 

 costs usually from 30 cents to 75 cents per M feet. Brush piling, 

 in most cases, is done by the logger, and of recent years the tim- 

 ber sale contract usually requires the operator to burn the brush 

 also. With stumpage prices running from $1 to $4 per M, the 

 cost of brush disposal, which, of course, comes out of the stump- 

 age paid the government, takes a large proportion of the value of 

 the timber. On a big timber sale with a heavy stand per acre, the 

 total amount expended for temporary protection of the sale area 

 reaches a rather alarming figure, and the thrifty forester must, of 

 necessity, cast about for a less expensive means of protection 

 from fire. 



Observations made on old slashings indicate that, in from 5 

 to 7 years, the slash has rotted down and disappeared so as to 

 bring the fire risk back to normal. The problem, then, is to 

 secure protection for the cut over area during the danger period, 

 after which the ordinary protective measures in force on the 

 Forest should suffice. Piling and burning the brush reduces the 

 danger to a minimum, but the expenditure for a few years' fire 

 protection is extremely great. 



The fire risk on a timber sale area is generally either from 

 fire starting in an adjoining slash on private lands, or from some 

 human agency such as logging engines, campers or smokers within 

 the area. If a system of fire lines is constructed by piling and 

 burning the brush on strips 100 to 300 feet wide along the danger 

 zones, and combined with a very intensive patrol for about five 

 years after the cutting, it should be possible to reduce the fire 

 risk to a minimum at a fraction of the cost of piling and burning 

 the slash on the entire area. In general, the brush should be 

 piled and burned on a strip 200 feet wide around the border of 

 the area if it adjoins slashing on private lands. A wide strip should 

 be cleared of brush on either side of logging railroads, and nar- 

 row strips along the main logging roads would break the area up 



