LIGHT BURNING VERSUS FOREST MANAGEMENT IN 

 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



By Richard H. Boerker, 



At the present time there is much being said and written in 

 Cahfornia about "Hght-burning" as a means of protecting for- 

 ests from fire. This theory aims to use fire as a servant to pre- 

 vent fire, and its advocates are criticizing timber holders severely 

 for not putting this theory into practice. It is an interesting 

 controversy between old methods under a new name and For- 

 estry, between short-sighted sacrifice of the future to the pres- 

 ent on the one hand and true conservation on the other. This 

 paper will attempt to treat of the use of fire as a servant in 

 Forestry and its results, good and bad, on Forest Management. 



That fire as "master" has done enormous damage is almost 

 axiomatic — it needs no proof. It has been estimated that one 

 billion dollars would not cover the forest fire losses in the United 

 States during the last 30 years. Canada claims that in her 

 Eastern provinces seven times more timber has been destroyed by 

 fire than has been cut. The State of Michigan, which has pro- 

 duced more lumber than any other area of the same size in 

 the world, is said to have lost through forest fires three times 

 as much as has been cut. Towns have been destroyed, millions 

 of acres of land made non-productive, and many lives have been 

 lost. In view of such history it has been claimed by some that 

 forest fires cannot be stopped, that fire must be fought with fire, 

 and that big timber holders should abandon their "theoretical 

 whims" and attack the problem from the practical side and burn up 

 systematically the refuse in the forests which forest fires feed 

 on. 



Of all the methods of using fire as a servant, the "light-burn- 

 ing" theory is the oldest, the most important, and at the same 

 time the most undesirable and the most mischievous, from the 

 standpoint of Forestry. The term "light-burning" has been used 

 to denote many different kinds of burning. "Light-burning" must 

 be distinguished from all other uses of fire, in that it aims, by 

 means of a light, rapid burn to rid the forest of needles, small 



