STANDARDIZATION OF FIRE PLANS, ORGANIZA- 

 TION, EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN 

 DISTRICT III. 



By John D. Guthrie. 



An interesting and productive conference was held at the 

 District Forester's offices' in Albuquerque, N. M. in March, 

 1914. The Supervisors of the Datil, Coconino, Sitgreaves, Gila, 

 Apache, Pecos and Jemez Forests, with certain of the District 

 officers, acting as a committee, considered the standardization of 

 fire plans, organization, methods and equipment. The desire of 

 the committee was to find out how far the District should go in 

 making the features of the present annual fire plan standard, 

 with the idea of making all instructions of the plan, upon which 

 the committee agreed, as mandatory hereafter for the entire 

 district. 



It was realized that local conditions had to be considered in 

 any attempt at standardization, yet it was felt that certain pro- 

 visions of the fire plan and certain methods and equipment could 

 well be made uniform for all forests in Arizona and New 

 Mexico. 



This committee went on record as adopting the following: 



Discovery of Fires and Method of Reporting. 



As standard the triangulation system of detection, from pri- 

 mary lookout stations, to be supplemented by riding patrol only 

 on those portions of a forest which cannot be covered from 

 lookout stations. 



On forests having adequate telephone communication fires will 

 be reported to both the supervisor and district ranger or fire 

 chief. 



Rank of Officers. 



It was decided that ordinarily the primary lookout man will 

 rank next in authority to the district ranger or fire chief. No 

 objections, however, will be made if the fire organization is 

 such that patrolmen should outrank lookout men. The im- 



