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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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CANADIAN DEPARTMENT 



BY ELLWOOD WILSON 

 PAST PRESIDENT CANADIAN SOCIETY OF FOREST ENGINEERS 



Quebec has experienced the driest spring 

 and early summer for many years. For 

 over six weeks scarcely a drop of rain fell 

 and the woods became so dry that on rocky 

 slopes, where the soil was thin, the trees 

 died entirely. The soil in the forests was 

 like so much tinder and any fires which 

 started sprang up again and again after they 

 were extinguished and even after heavy 

 rains. had fallen. The fire would get into 

 rotten logs or duff and creep along under- 

 ground for unbelievable distances and re- 

 appear again after everyone thought the 

 danger was over. Owing to a large num-_ 

 ber of men being without regular employ- 

 ment, many persons were fishing in the 

 woods and to them the greatest number of 

 fires was directly attributable. The rail- 

 roads showed a very great improvement in 

 the matter of setting fires, notably the lines 

 under the control of the Canadian Nation- 

 al Railway, which has been the worst offen- 

 der in the past. The number of fires set by 

 farmers was greater than ever owing to 

 carelessness in enforcing the permit law 

 and fn the issuing of permits, but^the damage 

 was mostly confined to their own woodlots. 



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The employes of lumber and paper com- 

 panies working on drives and so forth, 

 showed a marked improvement. Many fires 

 were set by people driving along country 

 roads and throwing matches and lighted ci- 

 garettes into the bushes. When the charac- 

 ter of the weather is taken into considera- 

 tion the total losses are surprisingly small 

 and this is due in great measure to the fire 

 fighting activities of the cooperative pro- 

 tective associations. The cost of fighting 

 fires will run to a very large amount. 



There are two very striking lessons to 

 be learned from the spring season. The first 

 is that measures which are entirely adequate 

 in ordinary seasons break down in excep- 

 tional ones. The secpnd is that the old meth- 

 od of patrol by men in canoes is practi- 

 cally useless. Travelling as they do in the 

 river valleys, they cannot see smoke until 

 a fire has assumed large proportions and 

 the only way forest fires can be controlled 

 is by putting them out almost immediately. 

 In spite of the cost lookout towers connect- 

 ed by telephones must be installed or better 

 still an aerial patrol must be installed. It is 

 absolutely impossible for the man in charge 

 of fire protection over an area of, say 15,000 

 square miles to handle it intelligently and 

 properly by travelling around by buggy and 

 canoe. He should be at all times in personal 

 touch with the situation and should not be 

 dependent on the reports of others. When 

 it takes two or three days of fatiguing 

 travel to get from one part of his district to 

 another when he might do the same thing 

 in an hour and a half, he is wasting time 

 and energy. During a dangerous season 

 reports are coming in all the time of new 

 fires and many of these are false or ex- 

 aggerated. They worry and annoy a man 

 exceedingly and often lead him or his men 

 on wild goose chases. If he travelled by air 

 he could at all times make the circuit of his 

 district and see every fire in one day and get 

 back to headquarters the next night.. Being 

 able to see just what was going on he could 

 lay out and direct his work much more ef- 

 ficiently and intelligently and save much 

 worry and exertion. Having all his inspec- 

 tors and rangers absolutely under his eye 

 they would be much more efficient and also 

 fieople would be more careful about setting 

 fires. In a patrol carried out by the Lau- 

 rentide Company this spring a daily re- 

 port was received of all the fires in a terri- 

 tory of ten thousand square miles. The 

 report covered fires previously burning, 

 with sketches and photographs showing the 

 areas burnt to date, new fires, giving lo- 



