Canadian Forestry Journal, December, 1919 



51 



PRACTICAL UTILIT Y OF PLA NES IN FORESTRY 



By J. B. Hark'in, Commissioner of Dominion Paries. 



Would an Equal Investment in Forest Wardens 



Achieve Better Results in Fire 



Prevention ? 



Practically everyone who has to do with for- 

 estry is convinced that eventually aircraft shall 

 be extensively and efficaciously used in such 

 work. Expectations in that connection concern 

 two broad lines — the rapid and accurate col- 

 lection of information in regard to the forests, 

 extent and variety, topography and fire protec- 

 tion. Everyone is familiar with the wonderful 

 detail and accuracy of the war maps prepared 

 from aircraft photographs. Such accurate and 

 detailed maps are absolutely necessary for the 

 intelligent handling of Canada's forests. Such 

 can be prepared by the laborious and expensive 

 and slow land survey methods, but the airplane 

 appears to offer facilities for securing perfectly 

 satisfactory maps at a trifling cost and in a 

 period of time measured in days instead of 

 years. 



However, it is in regard to fire protection 

 that most is expected of airplanes. After all 

 is said and done fire protection is the most 

 important feature of forest work from the 

 practical standpoint. No one will deny that 

 reforestation of cut-over areas is essential if 

 the annual yield is to be sustained. It is true, 

 natural reproduction can be depended upon m 

 some localities to replenish the denuded areas, 

 whether denuded by fire or by man. Certain 

 studies relative to the scientific management of 

 the forest from a commercial standpoint are also 

 necessary, but after all the practical man will 

 recognize that fire being a constant menace, it 

 is of no avail to reforest and carry on the various 

 other steps in regard to scientific forestry if the 

 organization of methods and appliances for pro- 

 tecting the forests- new or old from fire are 

 inadequate. 



Forest fire protection to be adequate requires 

 prompt discovery of fires, facilities for promptly 

 transporting men and appliances to the scene 

 of a fire, and finally adequate means of effect- 

 ively extinguishing fires. 



"catch them young." 

 Prompt discovery is a first essential. A for- 

 est fire in its incipient stage is comparatively 



easily handled. A forest fire which has devel- 

 oped into a large fire is one of the most difficult 

 problems a man can face. As to discovery, 

 there can be no difference of opinion as to the 

 utility of aircraft for this purpose. The methods 

 now followed in connection with fire discovery 

 are: The maintenance of patrols of men afoot 

 or mounted -and a constant observation of an 

 area from look-out stations either on moun- 

 tains or on high towers. The use of aircraft 

 undoubtedly will eventually supercede these 

 methods. Each of these methods has its own 

 peculiar advantages. The moving patrol can, 

 as a rule, cover larger areas than a look-out; 

 the look-out may do its work more intensively 

 than the moving patrol, but its limits are de- 

 finitely fixed by the topography of the country. 

 Aircraft should be able to take the place of 

 both these services. They combine the motion 

 of the man patrol and the intensity of the look- 

 out station. In effect, they will become moving 

 look-outs. 



The area which such a look-out station can 

 efficiently cover can be measured in hundreds of 

 square miles, while the area of a fixed look-out 

 station, or a man, or a horse patrol can cover, 

 is figured only in tens. Another item of super- 

 lative advantage is the altitude of an airplane 

 compared with an ordinary look-out station. 

 There are naturally very distinct limitations to 

 the height that a fixed look-out can reach. There 

 are practically no limitations to the airplane in 

 that regard. The ability of the airplane to rise 

 to great heights, it is true, enables it to overlook 

 at all time a much greater area than that cov- 

 ered by a fixed look-out. Important as this is, 

 it is, perhaps, not the greatest. Especially in 

 the mountains, fires frequently make headway 

 before discovery .because of high elevations in- 

 tervening between the look-out or the patrolling 

 warden and the fire, and because of the great 

 variations in the direction of the wind, caused 

 by the topographical features of the country. 

 The worst fire in the Dominion parks this year 

 was burning several days within a comparatively 



