Forest Fire Danger 



493 



Dispatchers must recognize and accept 

 their positive responsibility for quick 

 thinking and sound judgment. All 

 members of the fire-control team must 

 be ready and willing to take the initia- 

 tive and responsibility. 



No specific formula can be given 

 that will achieve automatically such 

 elements of morale and loyalty to the 

 work. They are compounded of mu- 

 tual respect, a high regard for each 

 other's ability, honesty in dealing with 

 others, leadership, and many another 

 quality of dignity and virility. 



On the shoulders of the fire manager 

 or fire chief rests probably the heaviest 

 responsibility of all. It is he who must 

 direct and supervise all fire-control ac- 

 tivities, not the least of which is to keep 

 everyone in the organization pulling 



together and constantly on the alert. 



EARL S. PEIRGE^ who has been chief 

 of the Division of Cooperative Forest 

 Protection, Forest Service, since 1935, 

 is a graduate of Yale University and 

 the Yale Forest School. He joined the 

 Forest Service in 1910, and has held 

 various positions in Wyoming, Colo- 

 rado, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and in 

 Washington, D. C. 



CARL A. GUSTAFSON is chief of the 

 Division of Fire Control in the Forest 

 Service. He began work with the Forest 

 Service in 1921 on the Nezperce Na- 

 tional Forest; subsequent assignments 

 were on the Wasatch, Sierra, Klamath, 

 and Plumas National Forests and as 

 fire staff officer in the California Re- 

 gional Office. 



FOREST FIRE DANGER 



G. LLOYD HAYES 



The 0.62 inch of rain that fell Sep- 

 tember 22, 1947, in southern Maine 

 was the last most residents were to see 

 in 47 days. Before the next rain came, 

 the headlines told a sad story: Boats 

 Evacuate Blazing Bar Harbor, on 

 October 24; Maine Fires Uncon- 

 trolled, 11 Dead, Damage $6,000,000, 

 on October 25; and President Orders 

 Aid to Maine, on October 26. Dam- 

 age and distress were great also in New 

 York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, 

 New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. 

 In November, rain finally ended one of 

 the most catastrophic periods of forest 

 fires in history. 



The fires came after the fire season 

 was officially ended; October 15 ordi- 

 narily marks the end of serious fire 

 weather. But fire seasons do not follow 

 the calendar. Fire fighting cannot be 

 scheduled the way operations in farm- 

 ing and manufacturing can be sched- 

 uled. Fires must be fought when they 

 occur. 



Foresters learned many years ago 

 that the only way to avoid catastrophic 



losses on bad fire days was to have large 

 numbers of men and large amounts of 

 fire-fighting equipment available for 

 instant use. At the same time they 

 recognized that it would be inefficient 

 and even impossible without unlimited 

 funds to retain so many men on the 

 pay rolls during the many easy days 

 when they would not be needed. Be- 

 sides, highly variable conditions com- 

 plicate the work of controlling forest 

 fires. One day a combination of factors 

 might mean only a few fires that spread 

 slowly and are easily controlled. The 

 next day fearsome numbers of fires, 

 which spread rapidly and violently and 

 which are controlled only with large- 

 scale effort and cost, might break out. 

 The variation in the number of fires 

 from day to day in the Eastern States 

 is shown by the records for April 814, 

 1943, in Connecticut. On those 7 days 

 there were 8, 25, 34, 71, 11, 12, and 3 

 fires, respectively. The 3 fires on April 

 14 were put out with an equivalent of 

 34 man-hours of labor, but the 7 1 fires 

 on April 11 required nearly 1,000. In 



