NINTH ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



CHIEF FIRE WARDEN 



OK MINNESOTA. 



The standing timber in Minnesota is worth easily 

 1 1 00,000,000, and it is this property which the fire war- 

 den system seeks to protect. The state itself owns 

 2, 500,000 acres of land, a part of which is forested and 

 protected by the fire warden system. The state last 

 November sold $600,000 worth of timber from its own 

 land, and has in all received $4,000,000 for just the tim- 

 ber sold from exclusively its lands which it received as a 

 gift from the United States. The state will continue for 

 many years to sell timber of various kinds from these 

 lands, and is on this particular account deeply interested 

 in preventing damage by forest fires. 



The local service in preventing and fighting fires, both 

 forest and prairie, is rendered by the town supervisors, 

 who are ex-officio fire wardens, and by those whom they 

 summon to assist, and in unorganized territory by fire 

 wardens specially appointed. This service is paid for in 

 the first instance by the counties in which it is rendered, 

 and the state pays to the counties two-thirds of such ex- 

 pense. Up to last year the state paid to the counties 



