1414 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



This would mean an annual expenditure of $96,425 for this period. 



The Park Service estimates that a total of $63,214 is needed 

 annually for fire prevention services and maintenance. 



This amount added to the annual expenditure of the 5-year pro- 

 tection improvement program gives a total of $159,639 which is the 

 average annual fire protection expenditure estimated as necessary by 

 the Park Service. 



ON INDIAN FOREST LANDS 



It has been estimated that approximately 9 million acres of the 

 Indian lands is actually forested out of a total of 7} million acres, 

 and 8 million acres, respectively, of commercial and noncommercial 

 forest land. The Director of Forestry in the Office of Indian Affairs 

 has supplied for this report the following data on forest fires on 

 Indian lands. 



The average annual expenditure for fire control during the 6 fiscal 

 years 1927-1932, inclusive, was $94,528. During the same period the 

 average area burned annually was 85,563 acres. The allowable burn 

 is 40,000 acres annually and the estimated annual expenditure needed 

 to bring the burned acreage down to this figure is $450,000 including 

 fire prevention, fire suppression, roads, trails, telephone lines, look- 

 outs, and other fire protection improvements. This large increase is 

 largely for capital investments. 



PUBLIC DOMAIN 



At the request of the Commission appointed by President Hoover 

 to make a study and report with recommendations for the solution of 

 the public-domain problem, the Forest Service in 1930 made an esti- 

 mate of the cost of fire protection for this land. The following acre- 

 age and costs are taken from the Forest Service report. 



The total area of the public domain is given as 173,318,246 acres, 

 of which 32,244,263 acres is considered as needing some degree of 

 fire protection. On some of this land, as for example the pinon and 

 juniper foothills in the West, the fire danger in many places is very 

 low. The timber values and watershed values are also comparatively 

 low in some cases. The cost estimates consequently are low compared 

 with actual costs on high-value and high-danger forest lands. 



It is estimated that the cost of adequate protection of this 32,244,263 

 acres will amount to $723,598. This estimate is based on national- 

 forest standards of protection and assumes that wherever the public 

 domain forms logical parts of the national-forest system these areas 

 will be added to the existing national forests and administered as a 

 part of them. This of course would facilitate administration and 

 reduce the cost of protection. Separate administration undoubtedly 

 would increase the total cost above the estimate given. Further and 

 more detailed discussion of the public domain will be found in the 

 section of this report entitled " Public Domain and Other Federal 

 Forest Land. " 



