1960 



Canadian Forestry Journal, December, 1918 



The Aeroplane in B. C. Forests 



Bi} J. H. Hamilton^ Editor of "Industrial Progress,'' Vancouver. 



The wonderful achievements of the 

 aeroplane during the Great War 

 foreshadow its use in many peaceful 

 lines of industry and development. 



One of the greatest assets of the 

 Province of British Columbia is its 

 enormous stand of merchantable tim- 

 ber which is valuable on the coastline 

 in proximity to tidal water , owing 

 partially to its ease of transportation 

 and particiilary to its density of 

 growth. The greatest enemy to the 

 forest is fire. Under unfavorable 

 conditions, immense valuable tracts 

 of timber may be destroyed within 

 a few days from an outbreak of fire 

 of small beginning. Frequently these 

 conflagrations are initiated by the 

 carelessness of campers and loggers. 

 British Columbia is the greatest 

 forest province of Canada. Her for- 

 ests contain approximately half of 

 the entire stand of the timber of the 

 entire Dominion and twenty-four per 

 cent, of the total stand of the Pacific 

 Northwest. 



The economic importance of the 

 timber to British Columbia and to 

 Canada as a whole may be realized 

 when it is stated that the forest rev- 

 enue of this Province is already 

 larger than that of any other province 

 of the Dominion; aggregating ap- 

 proximately $2,500,000 annually from 

 provincial crown timber lands alone. 

 The manufactured value of forests 

 products of the province is from thir- 

 ty-five to forty million dollars annu- 

 ally, and in 1917 the value exceeded 

 the entire output of the mines of 

 British Columbia. 



It is therefore quite obvious that 

 the most essential factor of the 

 exploitation of our forest growth is 

 protection from destruction by fire. 



The British Columbia Government 

 operating under the Forest Act, 

 maintains a staff of forest guards, 

 and patrol men which, immediately 

 prior to" the war, consisted of 395 

 men. War conditions and the finan- 

 cial situ, a lion have made it necessary 



to institute severe retrenchment, and 

 in 1915 the staff was reduced to 218 

 and further reduced in 1916 to 200. 



The fire situation during 1917 and 

 more particularly during the current 

 year demonstrated conclusively the 

 disastrous results that may be logic- 

 ally anticipated from the poHcy of 

 letting the forest so largely take 

 care of itself. Every citizen is direct- 

 ly interested in this important matter, 

 as will readily be seen from a 

 moment's consideration of the local 

 economical importance of lumber. 

 For this reason any factor which will 

 tend to afford better fire protection 

 than is at present feasible is of prime 

 importance at the present time. 



A reahzation of this point unduced 

 the Department of Lands to make the 

 experiment of patrolling the coast 

 area by means of hydroplanes. An 

 order was given to a local firm — 

 Messers. Iloffar Brothers, Vancouver 

 — for the construction of a flying 

 boat or hydroplane which was com- 

 pleted and ready for delivery in 

 August of this year. It was taken 

 over by the Government on the first 

 of September and made several suc- 

 cessful trial flights over Burrard 

 Inlet and Vancouver. On September 

 4th a trial flight under the pilotage 

 of Lieut. Bishop, R. A. F., ended 

 disastrously by the machine making 

 a nose dive of twelve hundred feet, 

 crashing on to the roof of a house in 

 the West End of Vancouver and 

 smashing the hydroplane to match- 

 wood. The pilot miraculously es- 

 caped death or even severe injury, 

 but the seaplane was irretrievably 

 damaged. 



Great regret is expressed at the 

 untimely end of the first hydroplane 

 constructed for this purpose, as its 

 use would have been experimental 

 and, if successful, would undoubtedly 

 have led to a larger employment of 

 this means of forest protection. It 

 is stated, however, that the Govern- 

 ment will immediate hqve con- 



