FIRE 167 



Controlled experiments started at Statesville, N. C., several years ago 

 in a virgin forest area tell a graphic story that "links fire with floods and 

 soil erosion." Dr. Bennett continues: "The ground cover on one woodland 

 plat has been burned each year since 1932, with a blow torch; another and 

 equal plat has been left in its original state. On both plats steel strips coun- 

 tersunk into the earth collect all run-off in measuring vats down the slope. 

 After every heavy rain, the vat of the burned plat is heavy with water, 

 dark with soil. Frequently the other vat is scarcely damp on the bottom. 

 Over a 6-year period the burned plat has shed almost exactly 100 times 

 as much water as the plat in virgin woods; soil losses have been more than 

 800 times as great." 



Loss of timber by fire is appalling. The Tillamook fire of August 1933 

 killed 10% billion board feet of timber. Yet the New England hurricane 

 felled a total of only 2% to 3 billion feet, of which about '1% billion board 

 feet was salvageable timber. Tillamook's 10% billion board feet was nearly 

 3 times the cut of the whole West Coast in that year. The loss was in one of 

 Oregon's finest timber stands. And, said the late F. A. Silcox, "Six years of 

 direct employment for 14,000 men (with dependents, 70,000 people) went 

 up in smoke, with loss of potential lumber values of 275 million dollars. 

 This burnt timber would have built 1 million small homes." 



It is known that, besides damaging mature timber, repeated fires kill 

 reproduction, prevent certain age classes from reaching maturity, and 

 result in a forest stand so understocked that it yields far less than it other- 

 wise might. Bad luck, indeed! For more than 30 years the Forest Service 

 has been announcing similar findings and warnings, but more progress has 

 been made, speaking generally, in the technique of fighting forest and brush 

 fires after they have started than in preventing them. 



CERTAIN IDIOSYNCRASIES that still distinguish our pioneer American folk- 

 lore and behavior in respect to fire and weather were strikingly exhibited 

 during the fire season in the far South in the spring of 1939. First, of course, 

 there was the Everglades burn-off, not only of vegetation and game, but of 

 soil ominously burning, a million acres of rich soil burning, and casting a 

 pall of soot over protected country 300 or even 400 miles away. This fire 



