184 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



tures. Last summer these emergency expenditures for fire fighting 

 in the western Montana and northern Idaho Forests came to more 

 than ten times the regular protective funds provided for the same 

 Forests. While the danger of great fires can no more be entirely 

 eliminated on the National Forests than it can in our large cities, it 

 can and should be minimized. 



Control of last summer's fires was made especialty difl^cult by vari- 

 ous circumstances. The delay in the enactment of the Agricultural 

 appropriation bill embarrassed the early building up of the protec- 

 tive organization. Labor was at times difficult to secure to the extent 

 needed, and was generally less efficient than usual; while it was 

 always hard to secure men experienced in fire fighting for foremen. 

 Very serious, however, was the further fact that the Forest Service 

 has been losing its trained men very rapidly, owing to its inability 

 to hold men at the present rates of compensation prescribed by law; 

 and in consequence in many cases the forest officers were compara- 

 tively new men or men who had been recently transferred from some 

 other district and had not yet become thoroughly familiar with the 

 local country. Undoubtedly this was responsible for failure in a 

 number of instances to get fires extinguished more promptly and 

 economically. 



Through a succession of unusually dry years the Forest vService 

 has been able to prevent a catastrophe. It has held down the loss 

 of merchantable timber to an amount which, under the circumstances, 

 is reasonably small. It has prevented injury and destruction to prop- 

 erty worth several hundred million dollars. On the other hand, a 

 large expenditure has been required to fight fires, and in the aggre- 

 gate a large area of old burns has been burned over, with resulting 

 destruction of a great deal of young growth. The reasons for the 

 failure to secure better results may be summed up as follows: 



(1) The Forests have not yet been suflSciently opened up with 

 roads and trails. It is still necessary in many cases to build trials 

 through the woods to the fires. This may require several da3^s, 

 during which a fire may have become a great conflagration. 



(2) The regular protective force is insufficient. 



(3) The Forest Service is almost wholly unequipped with motor 

 transport. Aside from the fact that the cost of hiring trucks to 

 transport men and supplies for fire fighting is very large, the diffi- 

 culty of obtaining such tran^ortation sometimes results in failure 

 to reach a fire before it is too late. Adequate equipment with motor 

 trucks would save a great many thousand dollars each year. 



(4) Successful fire protection is absolutely dependent on a perma- 

 nent force of trained men. Without that, fires which should be put 

 out promptly with little loss or cost spread widely and require many 

 thousands of dollars to prevent disaster, let alone extinguish them. 



(5) Public sentiment in many places has not yet roused to the 

 need of care in the forest and public cooperation. There are still 

 too many railroad fires, too much carelessness in the woods, particu- 

 larly from smoking, and too many fires from clearing land. 



The answer to the forest fire problem is therefore more roads and 

 trails, sufficient salaries for our forest officers to enable the build- 

 ing up and holding of a well- trained force, greater leeway in fur- 

 nishing motor equipment for fighting fires, which could also be used 

 in road improvements, and a more vigorous campaign to educate 

 the public to better cooperation in fire protection. 



