598 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



15. Preparation of firebreaks where the conditions are suitable, 

 chiefly in the southern California watershed forests. 



16. Systematic research directed at all phases of fire control- 

 prevention, preparation, and suppression. 



17. Enlistment of large-scale cooperation, financial and otherwise, 

 by owners of private land within forest boundaries, by communities 

 in and adjacent to the forests, and by thousands of local residents who 

 individually and in organized groups act in emergencies to suppress 

 fires. The building up of this local interest in fire protection has done 

 much toward fire prevention as well as in fire suppression. 



18. More effective protection by States, counties, and private 

 owners of areas bordering the national forests has helped materially 

 in the protection of the national forests. The Clarke-McNarylaw 

 cooperation has done much to stimulate this. 



The descending curve of area burned is not the only obvious proof 

 of progress in fire control. Pine trees poking their heads up here and 

 there through the dense brush fields of the California foothills attest 

 the progress in solving one of the most difficult fire problems. The 

 advent of young tree growth under formerly parklike pine stands 

 whose floor was kept clean by frequent fires in pre-national-forest 

 days is so extensive that the numbers of livestock grazing on these 

 areas has had to be substantially reduced because trees are taking the 

 place of grass. Old burns are being reclaimed by tree growth. 



The fire-control battle on the national forests is far from over, 

 however. Figure 6 shows that protective measures still fail to keep 

 losses within allowable limits on nearly one third of the area requiring 

 protection. Here the average annual burned area is almost five times 

 as great as can be tolerated. More progress is required along many 

 lines in still more public care with fire and less public indifference 

 to incendiarism and to fires in " brush" which are really burning up 

 young tree growth. The preventable fires from railroads, land 

 clearing, lumbering, and other industrial or business operations have 

 not all been eliminated by a considerable margin; methods of slash 

 disposal still need much improvement; more physical means in men, 

 improvements, and equipment are required; greater efficiency in the 

 manpower must be sought by continued training; active cooperation 

 must be further developed; still more effective action on adjoining 

 State, county, and private lands must be stimulated; a substitute must 

 be found for private protection effort where it has broken down under 

 the overload of cut-over lands ; and much more fire research in all lines 

 is indispensable. 



Where the highly aggravated brush-field protection problem is as 

 extensive as in California, serious study should be given to the possi- 

 bilities of hastening the reclamation of the land by the much more 

 easily^ protected tree growth. This may perhaps be accomplished by 

 planting scattered areas from which the forest cover will eventually 

 spread by natural seeding. Still better would be to find some cheap 

 method of completely replanting with trees these dense brush areas, 

 but so far this has proven too expensive and the survival has been 

 too small. 



In order to provide effective fire protection for the 30,028,884 acres 

 of national-forest land still inadequately protected that is, to hold 

 the average annual burned acreage to a figure which will not defeat the 

 full accomplishment of the resource management plans and objectives 



