pleted with the War Department by the Forest Service, 

 United States Department of Agriculture. On the 

 same day observations covering a large part of the 

 Angeles National Forest will be begun from a captive 

 balloon stationed over the Army Balloon School near 

 Arcadia, Calif. 



Two routes of airplane patrol work will be operated 

 from March Field, 12 miles southeast of Riverside, 

 Calif. Two planes will be used on each route, the 

 routes will each be approximately 100 miles long, and 

 each route will be covered twice a day. 



Begins Try-Out Work 



This will be the beginning of experimental work in 

 which the adaptability of aircraft to forest patrol work 

 is to be thoroughly tried out. If the tests should prove 

 successful it is expected that the airplane patrols will 

 be extended before the end of the 1919 season, and that 

 airplanes will become a permanent feature of the cease- 

 less battle against fires in the national forests. 



The airplane routes from March Field will afford an 

 opportunity to survey about 2,000 square miles in the 

 Angeles and Cleveland National Forests. The air- 

 planes are not equipped with wireless telephone ap- 

 paratus of such a nature that they can communicate 

 with the ground without the installation of expensive 

 ground instruments. Warnings of fires will be trans- 

 mitted by means of parachute messages dropped over 

 a town, the finder to telephone them to the Forest 

 Service; by special landings made to report by tele- 



14 



