lS 99- AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



The Prevention of Forest Fires. 



Three Chapters on a Question of Importance. 



241 



A Letter. 



To the Editor of The Forester : I en- 

 close an article published in the Oakland 

 Enquirer a short time ago. You will see 

 that, in the absence of expert knowledge, 

 this article does not venture upon posi- 

 tive assertions, but puts the view of the 

 matter taken by the old mountaineers as 

 a plausible hypothesis. I would like to 

 be informed, either through The For- 

 ester or in some other way, whether the 

 government bureau has ever considered 

 this aspect of the forest problem in Cal- 

 ifornia and, if so, what arguments it re- 

 lies on to refute the mountaineers. 



Scientific authority is the best in these 

 matters, we all know, and yet the practi- 



course, the praiseworthy one of saving 

 the forests from destruction. But in the 

 judgment of the settlers, while this seems 

 wise for the time being, the ultimate 

 effects are likely to be bad, for the rea- 

 son that there will be such a growth of 

 underbrush and such an accumulation 

 of forest debris that sooner or later there 

 will come fires with which no human ex- 

 ertion can cope. And then the forests 

 will go up in one mighty blaze. 



In the view of the settlers, California, 

 with its rainless summers, calls for a dif- 

 ferent method of forest preservation from 

 that which would be judicious in more 

 moist climates. They say that the true 

 method is to burn over the forests every 

 cal experience of old-time residents of summer, whereby the fires would be 

 the forest regions cannot be despised, ma de so light that the trees would suffer 

 and unless these old-timers are seriously no i n J ur y> an d great fires capable of de- 



mistaken in their premises, the Govern 

 ment is incurring a serious risk in the 

 Yosemite National Park and in the for- 

 est reserves, by excluding all fires, in- 

 stead of letting fires run through the for- 

 ests periodically, thereby destroying the 



stroying a whole forest will be prevented. 

 This is exactly what the Indians used to 

 do, the settlers argue, and wholesale de- 

 struction of forests in their time was un- 

 known. So firmly rooted is this convic- 

 tion among settlers and forest owners in 



accumulation of dead trees, leaves and 

 branches. 



undergrowth and, more particularly, the the Sierra region of California that on 



some occasions private owners have re- 

 fused assistance to put out fires on tim- 

 ber lands owned by them, because they 

 wanted them burned over as a measure 

 of safety. 



The idea that the Indians were better 

 foresters than the scientific experts of 

 the present day seems a peculiar one, 



A Clipping. 



Aside from the stockmen who would 

 be glad to browse their flocks and herds 

 upon the national domain, every one in 

 the forest regions of California indorses 



but it is seriously maintained by many 

 the policy of maintaining national parks . lr .. 1 



intelligent people. 



and forest reserves. But it is hard to 

 find in the region of the California re- 

 serves a single settler or landowner who 

 believes that the present plan of forest 

 protection will bring forth good results 

 in the long run. 



The great point of difference is the 

 extinguishment of forest fires. During 

 the summer the efforts of the Govern- 



Enquirer. 



-Editorial, Oakland 



A Comment. 



(By the Superintendent of Working Plans, 

 Division of Forestry.) 



California is not the only State in 

 which the annual burning of the forest is 

 considered among the residents the best 

 ment foresters are devoted to preventing method of protecting the timber from 

 fires and to extinguishing them when heavy fires. In certain sections of the 

 they do occur, the object being, of East, notably in the Atlantic Pine belt, 



