A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 1069 



severity of the season, upon the size of the average fire is, however, 

 most compelling. It is so important, in fact, that a true index of pro- 

 tection efficiency must await a much longer statistical period than 

 that now available. 



NUMBER OF FIRES 



The annual record for the years 1926-30 shows a steady increase in 

 number of fires and, despite the decrease in acreage per fire, an in- 

 crease in total area burned annually on the protected areas. While 

 some of this increase naturally follows from the fact that the area 

 protected was also increasing, it is significant to note that whereas the 

 area protected increased 29 percent during the 5 years, the number 

 of fires increased 124 percent and the area burned 43 percent. 



The increase in number of fires is perhaps further explained by the 

 fact that, with the better protection which certainly was provided in 

 1930, the record itself was more complete. This same phenomenon, 

 however, is observed on the national forests and in States where a 

 fairly uniform standard was maintained during the 5-year period. 

 The real causes must be sought in a number of factors, some of which 

 are climatic, as for example, decreased precipitation. In some sec- 

 tions a resistance on the part of local users of land to the development 

 of young forest growth and " rough" has led to incendiarism. Very 

 important, also, is the fact that people are traveling over the high- 

 ways and using the woods in increasing numbers. 



It is noteworthy that in one particularly bad fire section of New 

 England where an intensive educational campaign in fire prevention 

 was carried on over a 3-year period, the records show an increase and 

 not a decrease in number of fires. Nevertheless, by intensive patrol 

 and well organized suppression, the net result was a striking decrease 

 in area burned as well as in the total protection costs. The local 

 public was mobilized in this protection effort in a most thorough 

 manner. The inference is clear that the gain was due to prompt 

 detection of fire and aggressive attack, not to any real improvement 

 in the matter of prevention of fire occurrence. 



There is no doubt that forest-fire occurrence in the United States 

 is rather generally on the increase, whatever may be the causes. 

 This cannot be taken to mean that our protection efforts are decreasing 

 in efficiency. We know that the reverse is true. It means that much 

 greater effort is demanded if adequate control is to be obtained. 



AREAS BURNED ON UNPROTECTED AREAS 



The fire record for the more than 190 million acres classed as in 

 need of protection and receiving none is exceedingly inaccurate. A 

 great deal of work is done, however, to get rough estimates of forest 

 or potential forest area burned within this "no man's land." Table 

 5 shows the yearly averages for the period 1926-30 of areas burned 

 on unprotected areas, as nearly as the data allow, together with areas 

 burned on protected areas, repeated for comparison. It will be noted 

 at once that the great bulk of the total area of State and private land 

 which is burned in all States (37 million out of 41 million) is within 

 the unprotected area. The relative effectiveness of our protection 

 effort, despite all drawbacks, is witnessed by the fact that whereas 1.7 

 percent of the protected area was burned, fires are reported to have 

 covered 19.76 percent of the unprotected area in an average year of 

 the period covered. These points are illustrated in figure 6. 



