134 OUR NATIONAL FORESTS 



ests every year, the problem, as has been said before, 

 consists of getting men and tools to it in the shortest 

 possible time, in order to keep the damage down to 

 the lowest possible point. To do this, a vast or- 

 ganization has been formed by the Forest Service, 

 which is not unlike the Minute Man organization 

 of Revolutionary days. A brief outline of this or- 

 ganization and how it works when a fire starts will 

 give my reader a still better idea of what the Forest 

 Service is doing in forest fire protection. But be- 

 fore speaking of this organization, a few prelim- 

 inary matters are of interest; they deal with the 

 manner of distributing fire protection funds, forest 

 fire history, and the study of weather conditions. 



How Forest Fire Funds Are Distributed. It 

 devolves upon the Forest Supervisor and also the 

 District Forester to apportion the appropriation 

 allotted for fire protection in the most economical 

 and efficient manner. First of all, the money is 

 allotted to the various Forests in proportion to their 

 needs. These needs are measured by the size of the 

 Forest, the value of its resources, the length of the 

 dangerous dry season, the fire liability or the 

 amount of money loss in case of fire, the fire hazard 



