IX. FIRE INSURANCE IN FORESTY 



The timber or growing stock in the forest is liable to destruc- 

 tion by fire at any time of its -existence. The danger is greater for 

 conifers than hardwoods, greater for stands from ten to thirty 

 years old than for plantations or older timber; varies with the cli- 

 mate, soil, topography, and may be reduced greatly by proper im- 

 provements and protection. Since the timber or growing stock com- 

 monly makes up seventy-five per cent or more of the value of the 

 forest property, fire danger is serious. 



For the owner of a small forest, from forty to one hundred 

 acres, who may lose in one fire the greater part of all he owns, this 

 is no doubt true. Generally the danger is overrated. The burning 

 of a few plantations on a large forest property is not a serious mat- 

 ter ; they must be replaced and this adds to the current expense but 

 it does not affect the regular income for years to come. In stands 

 over fifty years old, the fire-injured or fire-killed timber is not a 

 total loss, in fact, it may be utilized often up to eighty or ninety per 

 cent of its full value. Here the fire may disturb the plans and or- 

 derly business of the forest but does not cause a serious loss. In 

 wild woods the case has been different. In the United States fires 

 have done enormous damage and even today are the greatest factor 

 preventing action in forestry. According to the report of the Na- 

 tional Conservation Commission of 1909, the fire losses in the United 

 States may be estimated at about fifty million dollars per year for 

 merchantable timber alone. To this the report adds a much larger 

 sum for destruction of stuff below merchantable size and usually 

 a total loss. Leaving out the latter, yearly fire losses of merchant- 

 able stuff for the last fifty years in the United States have been at 

 least ten cents per acre of forest area, and if the average value of 

 forest is twenty dollars an acre, the loss amounts to five dollars per 

 thousand dollars worth of forest, or about seventy per cent of what 

 good forests should pay in taxes. 



The difficulty here has been a lack of protection and lack of 

 market and roads to enable immediate use of the stuff injured or 

 killed. It has been the rule rather than the exception that timber 

 killed by fires in the United States has been a total loss. 



This is all changing now and will change a great deal more even 

 in the near future. It may be expected that in fifty years conditions 



