618 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



FEDERAL TROOPS AND FOREST FIRES 



^^-^HE advantages accruing- from the use of federal troops in fighting forest 

 I J fires in the national forests are very ably brought out by Mr. Cornwall 

 ^*^ in his article which appears in this issue of American Forestry. In a 

 time of extreme danger and national disaster, such as existed in the forests of 

 the west lat year, the troops were a gi-eat help, and the War Department 

 would no doubt be glad to help the Forest Service again if similar emer- 

 gencies arise. The use of troops in times of emergency has occurred on several 

 occasions, as during the San Francisco fire, and a precedent may be said to 

 have been established. 



While these extraordinary situations justify the use of national troops, 

 there is gi-ound for diversity of opinion regarding the regular assignment of 

 troops to assist the Forest Service. It is pointed out that such a course 

 would tend to hamper the development of the national forest organization and 

 build up a system similar to that in the national parks. Such a result would 

 obviously hinder the best use of the forest. The Forest Service already has 

 a strong organization which combines fire protection and control with various 

 other duties which are essential to the best management of the forest. The 

 ranger force is inadequate in numbers, but it is trained to great efficiency. 

 In times of fire danger, the resources of the Forest Service are augmented 

 by men and tools from local residents, lumber camps, etc., and gradually 

 a strong reseiTe is being built up with the regular forest force as a nucleus. 

 It wiJl soon be only in times of great fire danger such as last year that inex- 

 perienced men not on the reserve list will need to be recruited, or the regular 

 troops called out. 



A system under which the Army regularly helps the Forest Service pro- 

 tect the forests in Secretary Stimson's oi)inion would be bad. It is conceded 

 that our army needs centralizing to permit of manoeuvers by large bodies 

 of trooj)S. To this end it is the aim of the department to abandon small isolated 

 posts, but this would be impossible if the troops were distributed over the 

 national forests. Another point is that fire prevention rather than fire fighting 

 is the essential feature of an efi'ective system and to assign privates in the 

 regular army to patrol work would largely deprive them of true military 

 training and not make for army efiiciency. 



The German forests are protected without the help of the large German 

 standing army and we should consider well before breaking up our small army 

 for regular forest fire duty. W^hen emergencies arise, the troops can be called 

 on and their services will be most helpful, but it will be a radical and perhaps 

 dangerous policy to put even a small projjortion of our army permanently into 

 the national forests. 



MAINE'S EXHAUSTED FIRE FUND 



AINE has for some time been held up as an example among the eastern 

 states for its system of forest fire prevention and control. Its expendi- 

 tures have been considerable and it easily secured the maximum allow- 

 ance of ten thousand dollars from the national co-operative fund provided 

 by the Weeks law. It was, therefore, something of a shock as well as a sur- 

 prise to learn on or about the 10th of August that the $68,000 protection fund 

 of the ]\Iaine forestry district and the national appropriation of flO.OOO were 



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