THE SPRUCE REGION 257 



their importance : first, carelessness in burning brush in clearing 

 land; second, sportsmen of various sorts, such as campers, 

 fishermen, and hunters; and third, railroad locomotives. In 

 the Vermont section, railroad locomotives are the cause of only 

 a small percentage of the fires, owing to the fact that the railroads 

 traversing this portion of the region are not adjacent to extensive 

 wooded areas — a narrow belt of agricultural land along the 

 valleys intervening between the railroad and the forest. This is 

 true to a lesser extent in the New Hampshire section, but in 

 Maine many railroads run for considerable distances through 

 woodland. 



At the present time, methods of securing data on forest fires 

 lack the highest efficiency, and a large per cent of the fires 

 reported are attributed to "unknown" causes. As the state 

 organizations for reporting fires become thoroughly organized 

 and trained this class of fires should be reduced to a small per 

 cent of the total. If the unknown causes were discovered the 

 number of fires set by sportsmen would undoubtedly be greatly 

 increased, and it is believed would take fiirst place in the region. 



Statistics on fires in the spruce region will be found in the 

 Appendix under "Forest Fire Statistics." 



Methods of Fire Protection. — The best method of fire pro- 

 tection for the spruce region consists in a combined system of 

 mountain lookout stations and patrolmen, maintained by the 

 cooperation of the states involved, individual timberland owners, 

 and the federal government.^ A network of telephone lines to 

 all parts of the territory is necessary. The forests of the spruce 

 region have been lumbered for so long a period, and the selection 

 character of the forest allows so many and frequent returns to 

 previously cut-over lands, that old roads, camps, and telephone 

 lines cover the whole area. On many tracts all the telephone 

 lines needed for protection have existed for years. Elsewhere 

 new construction or repair of old lines is made easy by the 

 improvements already existing. 



1 The cooperative arrangement between the states and the federal government 

 is described in Chapter XVII. 



