SPECIALIZED FOREST PROTECTION 9 



v 



1 DIRECTOR OF PERMANENT FORCES 



The maintenance of supervisory control over the entire prevention, detection, and 

 suppression staff regularly employed in his district is of first importance to the super- 

 visory officer. 



To do this it is essential that he be able to maintain communication with all units 

 of this staff. This is accomplished by the proper planning of the permanent lines of 

 communication witihin the district and the skilful use of the portable and emergency 

 equipment described in this manual. 



2 MOBILIZATION OF SUPPRESSION FORCES 



The supervising officer must organize and direct the mobilization of all the forces 

 needed to form the main and supporting lines of defence in fire suppression. While the 

 aim of specialized forest protection is always to handle all fires in the incipient stage 

 this ideal cannot always be maintained, and through delays in detection or reporting, 

 faulty location or other failures, some fires will prove too formidable for the "smoke 

 chaser" alone. There are few forest regions even in the more remote parts of Canada's 

 commercial timber-belt where there is not some form of local settlement. Where agri- 

 cultural settlers are not found there are still logging camps, miners, construction crews, 

 or perhaps surveyors, tourists, summer residents, hunters, etc. The communication 

 system must be planned to put the supervising officer in direct touch with all these 

 sources of labour and he must organize this labour so that in ease of emergency it may 

 be called upon for assistance with a reasonable certainty of an immediate and effective 

 response. This has been accomplished in several ways but probably the most successful 

 has been through the organization of volunteer fire companies, organized with all the 

 necessary officers and bound by agreement to report on call at designated points. Many 

 factors and local conditions necessarily cause wide variations in the possibilities of 

 developing these forces for use in fire emergencies. 



In the more highly perfected organizations it is possible to distinguish three lines 

 of defence or classes of forces behind the "smoke chaser." These may be called: 



(a) Main line forces, which are as .a rule made up of all the available employees of 

 the timber-owner; 



(&) Supports, which consist of local residents usually scattered through or on the 

 immediate borders of the forest who are under definite contract to perform certain 

 specified emergency fire duties; and 



(c) The Reserves, which may consist of organized volunteer fire companies as out- 

 lined above or may be simply an available labour supply at some adjacent centre where 

 arrangements for securing men have been made through labour agencies or other 

 means. 



Whatever is the form and composition of the Supports and Reserves, the mobiliza- 

 tion, equipment, and transportation of these forces to the fire-lime must be (handled by 

 the 'supervisory officer and his staff. Fire plans, which are an essential feature of 

 specialized fire protection, detail the means for accomplishing this concentration, but 

 the expeditious carrying out of the features of such a plan is largely dependent upon 

 the system of communication. 



3 MAINTENANCE AND DIRECTION OF SUPPRESSION FORCES 



Finally, the supervisory officer must provide for the maintenance of his forces on 

 the fire-line and the direction of the work of suppression by these forces. In this, his 

 problems differ, from that of the military officer in no material aspect except the merely 

 rudimentary development of his medical service -and the absence from his transportation 

 columns of anything corresponding to the enormous quantity of ammunition required 

 by modern troops. A complete discussion of this phase of the function of supervision 



