1210 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



holding the land. While it may arise from a number of causes, it 

 reflects a common feeling of protest against the larger holdings. Too 

 often the local residents consider that fire is not damaging them but 

 is putting an opposed group to loss or inconvenience. Therefore, 

 while they would not maliciously set fires or hinder the efforts of the 

 landowners to control them, they are not greatly concerned unless 

 fires assume disastrous proportions. The need here is to intensify 

 the conviction that forests are a community asset, regardless of who 

 owns them, and that "everybody loses when fires burn." The diffi- 

 culty of enforcing fire laws where this conviction does not exist is 

 obvious. 



Federal and State participation in the actual expense and organi- 

 zation for fire control has been a large factor in improving the point 

 of view of the resident public. The fact that public agencies are in 

 partnership with the landowner in fire protection or have taken over 

 the whole task as a matter of public responsibility is a convincing 

 argument in favor of care and active cooperation on the part of the 

 individual citizen, altogether apart from the fear of legal penalties 

 for acts of incendiarism. 



USE OF FIRE ON LAND BELONGING TO OTHERS 



Official estimates indicate that more than one third of the fires 

 occurring on forest lands under protection are caused by smokers 

 and campers, mostly on land belonging to other people. Through 

 tradition and custom, the right of the public to make use of the 

 forests and woodlands in private ownership for hunting, fishing, and 

 other forms of recreation is well established. While there are laws 

 in many States protecting landowners against undue use of this sort, 

 they are generally deficient if reviewed from the standpoint of fire 

 protection alone, and are especially difficult of enforcement. The 

 solution of the problem involves questions such as seasons open to 

 hunting and fishing, and will ultimately require a balancing of benefits 

 and hazards and an equitable adjustment between public rights and 

 requirements and those of the landowner. The matter can now be 

 handled only by the State, even the use of federally owned forest 

 land being, under the terms of withdrawal, largely subject to State 

 statutes in these respects. 



NECESSARY USE OF FIRE BY LANDOWNER 



Fire is an essential tool in logging, land clearing, farming, and 

 construction projects. It follows that its use by the landowner or 

 tenant must be legalized under the general rights of ownership, 

 provided that such use does not infringe on the rights of other indi- 

 viduals or the general public. 



Fires spread easily, and the establishment of practices necessary in 

 the public interest and not unduly burdensome on the landowner 

 offers many difficulties. It involves the establishment by law of 

 seasons during which burning for disposal of debris or for other purposes 

 is permissible, and of the conditions under which it may be done. In 

 regions of serious fire hazard, proper protection requires the setting up 

 of local authority for the issuance of burning permits and provision 

 for inspection work and law enforcement. 



