on the sand plains of Upper Michigan there will always be, probably. 

 A locomotive spark or a cigaret stub has been known to burn over 

 an area equivalent to a county. Fires will start. Stopping them 

 before they get far is what fire "control" in North Michigan means. 



J. Girvin Peters, chief of the United States Forestry Department 

 which co-operates with the Michigan and 23 other state governments 

 in fighting forest fires, estimated in 1912 that an average of 10,000,000 

 acres are burned over annually in the United States, with a money 

 loss of about $20,000,000. A sizable bonfire. 



STATE'S FIRE LOSS. 



Michigan's loss by forest fires for a period of 10 years ending in 

 1911, is declared in a circular of the Forest Fire Protective department 

 of the Michigan Hardwood Manufacturers' Association, to have been 

 $20,000,000. Of the annual loss, then, for a 10-year period, Michigan's 

 loss was one-tenth of the total for the country all out of proportion 

 when one remembers that in these latter years Michigan's timber 

 wealth per acre does not approach that of western states which come 

 in the reckoning. 



And note that these losses are of timber values only. Loss by soil 

 depreciation and because of the starving out of the farmers and town 

 dwellers dependent on forest or agricultural harvest is given no place 

 in the totals. Nor even is the damage to young stands of timber and 

 growth well begun but too young to be called timber, reckoned in. 

 The figures are for losses in timber merchantable as such at the time 

 of estimate. 



Setting aside statements of values, of dizzying heights, take areas. 

 An average of half a million acres is burned over in Michigan every 

 year. The two active fire seasons are spring and autumn, spring the 

 worst, though this is not understood generally. The reasons will 

 appear when the details of forest fire fighting are given. One of J. 

 Girvin Fetters' men, who was here during the bad fire season of 1919, 

 reported back to his chief that "at least a half a million acres have 

 burned over in Michigan to date," and the date was in midsummer, 

 with the fall fires to come. 



ESTIMATE BURNT AREA. 



x Half a million "acres for every year may be argued against as too 

 large an estimate, but considering that there have been many "bad" 

 years equal to or worse than 1919, that there has been in time past 

 more to burn and less protection even than now, and that the effort to 

 minimize the facts of destruction has been stronger in the past than it 

 is now, the belief is that an estimate of 500,000 acres of fire in this 

 state for every year is not too large. That is the area of an average 

 Lower Peninsula county, burned over yearly. The fires have burned 

 every year for the last half century. Of course many of the same 

 acres burn over, again and again. It is, in fact, repeated fires on the 

 same land that work the real havoc. 



You will want to be told at once, if you do not know, what is being 

 done about it. The forest fire fighting organization, its operation, the 

 cost, the results accomplished and what might reasonably be expected 

 to be accomplished these subjects are of first importance in consid- 

 ering what should be done to make Michigan's bankrupt aeres, state 

 and private owned, remunerative. 



