Costs of Forest Protection 31 



minimized by the reporting officers, and, because the tim- 

 ber embraced within the patrol areas of such organizations is 

 usually the most valuable and accessible in the region, burned- 

 over timber can usually be logged out promptly and before serious 

 deterioration takes place, thus salving much of the loss. The 

 private timber owner figures his investment and values in terms 

 of merchantable stumpage only. As a result of these factors, the 

 reported damage is usually light on association areas. Under 

 the circumstances, the sum of actual protection costs, plus losses, 

 seems seldom to exceed the assessments by more than a few 

 cents per acre and the figures cannot be properly checked against 

 those from forests which are permanent timber properties. 



Figures as to costs and losses in the States where more or less 

 protection work is done are as yet usually useless. Where the 

 Fish-Fire-Game-Warden system prevails, the proper protection 

 costs must be pro-rated out of the total costs. With a few notable 

 exceptions, the State administrative officials are non-technical 

 and untrained. Perhaps for this reason, the statistical records 

 of the several States seldom even approximately follow the same 

 form and frequently vary in form in consecutive years. The 

 losses which are reported seldom assign a value to anything save 

 merchantable timber, and, as in the case of the Private Associa- 

 tions, even this tends to be minimized. Lack of consecutive and 

 competently prepared records makes most of the State fire records 

 useless for the present purpose. 



The published records of the Forest Service are the best 

 available and are especially dependable since 1910. They leave 

 much to be desired, however, in that expenses "for administra- 

 tion and protection" are lumped, and in that it is impossible 

 to arrive at the net sums which are expended on the National 

 Forests directly. 



The total fire bill on any forest has two major items: 1. 

 Expenditures in connection with fire prevention and control. 

 These include a proportionate charge from the salaries of the 

 permanent field force according as their time is chargeable to 

 protection activities, the salaries of all fire patrolmen and fire- 

 fighters and their assistants, such as packers, the cost of fire- 

 fighting tools and equipment and of construction exclusively of 

 value for protection purposes, such as lookout stations, and their 

 equipment, lookout trails and telephone lines, etc. In addition 



