Bad Business; Your Business 



483 



2. Conservation of manpower for 

 raising food and for war industries. 

 (Records show that almost a million 

 man-days of labor were being drawn 

 yearly from farms and factories to put 

 out man-made and therefore pre- 

 ventable wildfires. ) 



3. Conservation of grass and stubble 

 (food for cattle and sheep) on ranges 

 and farms. 



4. Removal of threats by fires to 

 uninterrupted use of vital railroads, 

 truck lines, and war plants and can- 

 tonments that were in or near forest 

 and range areas. 



5. Prevention of "black days" that 

 interrupted training schedules for air- 

 plane pilots and gunners. (Smoke from 

 Wisconsin wildfires in 1894 was so 

 dense over the Great Lakes as to in- 

 terfere with the movement of vessels, 

 according to John D. Guthrie. He also 

 states that smoke from wildfires in 

 Washington and Oregon interfered for 

 10 days in 1910 with nautical observa- 

 tions 500 miles at sea. ) 



Many methods for preventing the 

 start of man-caused wildfires were in- 

 tensified during the war. Three that 

 seem to offer promise for the years 

 ahead were: 



1. Personal appeals by forestry rep- 

 resentatives to key people among lum- 

 bermen, ranchers, resort owners. 



2. Cooperation of State and Federal 

 forestry and highway departments 

 with counties, railroads, and industries 

 in locating and then fireproofing the 

 most hazardous stretches along roads 

 and railroads and at sawmills and in- 

 dustrial plants. 



3. Law enforcement including ar- 

 rest and vigorous prosecution if neces- 

 sary against incendiarists and indi- 

 viduals and organizations guilty of 

 carelessness with outdoor fires. 



Those methods helped to reduce the 

 number of man-caused wildfires dur- 

 ing the 4 years from 1942 through 

 1945. Also helpful were gas rationing 

 and the Wartime Forest Fire Preven- 

 tion Campaign, which was started in 

 1942. 



The Wartime Forest Fire Prevention 



Campaign was (and still is, under the 

 name of Cooperative Forest Fire Pre- 

 vention Campaign) a Nation-wide 

 educational program planned by the 

 Advertising Council, which charted 

 drives like those to save food and buy 

 bonds. The campaign, a cooperative 

 effort by State and Federal foresters, 

 helped by winning support among na- 

 tional as well as local merchandisers 

 and advertisers; by laying a ground 

 work on which State and local cam- 

 paigns might build; and by enlisting 

 active cooperation among such na- 

 tional organizations as the American 

 Red Cross, which continues to urge its 

 chapters to help prevent wildfires be- 

 cause they so often bring disasters to 

 families and communities. 



This campaign helped, but it did 

 not take the place of the measures pre- 

 viously mentioned planned personal 

 contacts by forest officers with key 

 people, law enforcement, or fireproof- 

 ing of selected high hazards. 



It was all of those methods, rather 

 than any one or two, that reduced by 

 18 percent the average number of 

 man-caused wildfires during the 4 war 

 years in comparison with the average 

 number during the 4 years immedi- 

 ately before the war. This 18 percent 

 is the Nation-wide figure for all forest 

 and grassland in all ownerships and 

 under organized fire protection in the 

 United States, except Hawaii. It is 

 derived from data furnished by State 

 foresters and Federal agencies. In the 

 4 war years, also, the number of fires 

 caused by campers dropped 50 percent 

 from the number in the 4 prewar 

 years ; those caused by smokers dropped 

 29 percent; by burners of brush, 15 

 percent; by incendiarists, 13 percent; 

 by lumber operations, 18 percent; and 

 unknown, 8 percent. Only the number 

 caused by railroads went up, by 38 

 percent. 



The increase in railroad fires prob- 

 ably was due in large part to the over- 

 loading of equipment and shortage of 

 skilled workers during the war. It is 

 interesting to note, however, that al- 

 though a comparable situation pre- 



