1400 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



HOW CLOSELY HAVE THE OBJECTIVES BEEN REACHED? 



The 41 K million acres of forest and potential forest land burned 

 over annually during the period 1926-30, and the 447,000 acres on 

 the more intensively managed national forests included in this total, 

 are startling and alarming figures in themselves. The damage to 

 forest values as a result of these fires can perhaps best be indicated 

 and measured by comparing directly the annual burn and the objec- 

 tives in fire control set up for each major forest region, as shown in 

 table 5. 



TABLE 5. Ratio of actual annual burn to allowable burn outside and within national 

 forests, by regions (average 1926-30) 1 



1 A ratio of 1 or less indicates that objective has been reached. 



2 Data incomplete for certain areas in Wisconsin and Minnesota. 



The data briefly indicate that on the 417 million acres constituting 

 the major forest regions, outside of the national forests, requiring pro- 

 tection against fire, 1 1 times as much damage was done by fire as this 

 area can receive and still retain the desired degree of productivity. 

 On the 95 million acres of national forest land requiring protection as 

 a whole, on the contrary, damage was held down practically to the 

 acceptable maximum. The extremely high ratio (11 to 1) for the 

 areas outside the national forests is due in a large measure to the 

 existence of millions of acres of forest land where, because of lack of 

 funds, no protction is afforded. At the same time, large areas exist 

 in every region where fire-protection work is fairly adequately 

 financed and the results are relatively satisfactory. 



Of the territory outside of the national forests (fig. 1) only the 

 South and North Rocky Mountain regions attain their objectives. 

 The forest regions where greater timber values are at stake are burn- 

 ing annually considerably more than the desirable maximum. For 

 example, the South, covering a territory of 206,321,000 acres of forest 

 and potential forest land, is burning over at the rate of 14.2 times its 

 objective, in spite of the fact that the percentage of allowable burn 

 set up in the objective (1.34 percent) is far higher than for any other 

 important forest region. The large area burned over in the South is 

 largely attributable to public indifference to the desire of special 

 groups to fire the woods for one purpose or another, to inadequately 

 financed fire-control organizations, and to the few large sections of 

 the region where no protective effort against fire is being made. 

 But even in forest regions where current expenditures are large, as 

 for example in the Pacific Coast, Lake, or Middle Atlantic, further 

 intensification of fire-control effort is needed if the objectives are to 



