Federal and State Co-operation in 

 Fire Protection 



By J. G. Peters, Chief of Private and State Co-operation U. S. F. S. 



THE federal statute popularly known as the Weeks Law 

 authorizes co-operation with states in protecting from 

 fire the forests on watersheds of navigable streams. 

 Thus the government has realized the desirability, and as- 

 sumes a part of the responsibility, of protecting such water- 

 sheds. Forest fires, by destroying the ground cover, promote 

 the rapid run-off of rain water and bring about erosion in 

 rough country, with the consequent formation of sand bars In 

 river channels and interruption of navigability. The fire prob- 

 lem on such watersheds becomes, therefore, one of broad na- 

 tional importance. 



This law has been in operation four years, and the present 

 annual appropriation for the work is $100,000. To secure co- 

 operation of this character a state must have provided by law 

 for a system of forest fire protection and must expend for the 

 purpose at least as much as the government. Eighteen states 

 are receiving assistance, including Maine, New Hampshire, 

 Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 

 Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, 

 Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and 

 Oregon. The federal fund is allotted to these states so as to 

 give in general the most effect results, no one state receiving 

 yearly more than $10,000. The money is used almost exclu- 

 sively for paying the salaries of lookout watchmen on moun- 

 tain stations or of patrolmen in the low country. During the 

 fire season approximately 300 federal men are maintained in 

 the field under this law. They guard an area of about 13,000,- 

 000 acres, for the most part mountainous and all on impor- 

 tant watersheds. The average cost of this protection to the 

 government is three-fourths of a cent per acre annually. In 

 the aggregate the federal expenditures total less than a fifth 

 of the states', while the money spent by private owners, in- 

 cluding more than 35 protective associations, amounts to prob- 

 ably as much as the federal and state expenditures combined, 



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