1410 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



series of transportation, detection, and organization studies which 

 seeks to supply in detail what ultimate expenditures may be required 

 for each national forest to meet its objective in fire control. This 

 material as far as it has been available has been used as a guide in 

 arriving at the proposed new schedule of costs. Additional expendi- 

 tures have been considered only for those national forests where the 

 objective in fire control has not been met or where additional capital 

 outlay promises to result in a net reduction either in costs of fire 

 suppression or in damage to forest values. The great bulk of the 

 proposed increased expenditures as shown in table 1 1 is almost wholly 

 for the 31.6 percent of the national-forest area classed as critical and 

 now suffering from severe losses. 



In examining the figures in table 1 1 , it will be noted that increased 

 expenditures are not contemplated in two regions, are less than 1 cent 

 an acre in 2 others, between 1 and 1.5 cents in 3, and approximately 

 2 cents in 1 . Of the increases proposed at least 74 percent is for the 

 cost of additional roads and trails and includes capital investment 

 and maintenance. In several instances the additional mileage is 

 needed because of the expanding area of the national forest as the 

 units are built up by additional land purchases, and, in the case of 

 the South Rocky Mountain region, to reduce fire-suppression costs. 

 Since the present net area was used to arrive at the annual charge 

 per acre for carrying the investment in transportation, the figure will 

 become less and less as the purchase program is completed. It will 

 be noted that in five regions the additional expenditure for roads and 

 trails will make possible reductions in present costs to the point where 

 the total additional is less than the transportation increment. 



TABLE 11. Present and proposed annual costs per acre for adequate fire control on 



the national forests 



1 Capital investment and maintenance. 



2 Additional expenditure for better transportation will make possible a reduction of present cost in other 

 particulars, resulting in a "total additional" cost actually less than that proposed for roads and trails. 



* Slight additional expense for roads and trails would result in a saving of 0.06 cents per acre. 



ON STATE, PRIVATE, AND OTHER AREAS OUTSIDE NATIONAL 



FORESTS 



The ultimate costs of fire control for areas outside of the national 

 forests, while not as readily ascertainable as those within, are based 

 on careful estimates made in 1930 by the Forest Service cooperating 

 with the States. The estimates have subsequently been checked 

 against comparable costs on national forests in the same regions with 

 due allowance for differences in accessibility and fire danger. These 

 comparisons indicate that, in order to attain the fire-control objective 



