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Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



action, yet forest fires usually start in 

 places far from fire hydrants and paved 

 streets. 



Finally, it is complex because of the 

 nature and behavior of uncontrolled 

 fire. Many aspects of fire behavior are 

 not yet fully understood, and big fires 

 continue to defy man's efforts to con- 

 trol them at will by even the best of the 

 methods that have been developed. 



THE HISTORY of forest fires varies in 

 detail from one part of the United 

 States to another, and it is closely in- 

 terwoven with our history of develop- 

 ment. In most of our forest country it 

 was an unhappy aspect of the conquest 

 of the wilderness. 



It is enough in this introductory sur- 

 vey merely to point to the use of fire 

 to clear land when this country was 

 young, to the big and intense fires that 

 followed the early logging operations 

 on millions of acres and held back a 

 new timber crop, the awakening of 

 citizens of half a century ago to the de- 

 struction to forest wealth that was tak- 

 ing place, the creation of the national 

 forests and the enactment of many 

 State laws designed to prevent fires 

 and protect forest lands, and the band- 

 ing together of responsible timberland 

 owners into forest fire-protective as- 

 sociations in the West. 



From such points of history two facts 

 emerge: Despite a general change in 

 attitudes about fires, the careless use of 

 fire still persists among habits in parts 

 of the country and remains a constant 

 threat to the forests. Also, wherever 

 forest lands exist, there has been a his- 

 tory of forest fires that have influenced 

 the present-day forest. To the initiated, 

 some of the things that past fires have 

 done are clearly evident in every neg- 

 lected forest tract. A forest fire may be 

 small and it may be forgotten next year, 

 but its effect on trees may persist for a 

 long time. The continuing effect of fire 

 in the forests is probably the most im- 

 portant single reason that forest fires, 

 even small fires, concern everybody. 



Fires such as those that occurred in 

 1910 in Idaho, which wiped out several 



million acres of virgin timber in a few 

 days, have not since been repeated, 

 thanks to the progress made in pro- 

 tecting forests since that time. But big 

 and destructive fires are still possible, 

 even though not on so vast a scale 

 remember the 245,000-acre Tillamook 

 fire in Oregon in 1933, or the fires in 

 Maine in 1947, when a thousand homes 

 were destroyed. 



SYSTEMATIC FOREST-FIRE CONTROL, 

 as we know it now, began in the West 

 about a half century ago, when the 

 possibility of controlling fire damage 

 seemed almost like trying to control 

 storms and floods and the other great 

 forces in nature. Nevertheless, people 

 realized that every fire started as a 

 small fire and that if action could be 

 taken quickly enough it need not turn 

 into a ruthless giant. Earlier, the chief 

 concern in fighting forest fires had been 

 to protect human life and property; 

 systematic forest-fire control concen- 

 trated on the problem of protecting the 

 forest itself. 



From the start the forest fire fighter 

 has needed equipment to make his 

 efforts count. At first he depended en- 

 tirely on the simple tools at hand or 

 improvised with such things as a pine 

 branch or a wet burlap sack. Generally 

 he could not depend on using water. 

 Much of the story of progress in con- 

 trolling forest fires is the story of the 

 development of more and more effec- 

 tive fire-fighting tools and of increasing 

 mechanization of the slow and strenu- 

 ous hand work that fire fighting has 

 always called for. 



The old problem of how to get to a 

 fire soon enough has been solved in the 

 back country through the use of air- 

 planes and parachute jumpers; else- 

 where better roads and faster motor 

 equipment now play a decisive role. 

 We also have portable pumps and tank 

 trucks, which can apply water quickly 

 to small fires within reach of any road- 

 way; radio communication, which 

 enables a widely dispersed fire organiza- 

 tion to work together as a team ; plows 

 and bulldozers, which can establish 



