12 POTLATCH TIM HER PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION 



CHIEF FIRE WARDEN'S REPORT 



ELK RIVER, IDAHO, DKCEMMER 1, 1914. 

 POTLATCH TIMBER PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION AND STATE HOARD or 



LAND COM MISSIOXERS. 

 GENTLEMEN : 



The usual precautions were taken early this year to see that 

 the debris of the logging operations of the previous winter was 

 well cleaned up in the spring before there could be any danger of 

 fire getting out of control of the crews burning the slashings. 



Our established trails were cleaned out as fast as the snow 

 went off, our telephone system was carefully inspected and re- 

 paired, and the horses were brought in from their winter range. 



PREVENTION OF* FIRES 



With this very important preliminary work completed, par- 

 ticular consideration was next given to the human agencies 

 through which experience has taught us fires might be expected 

 to be started, and campaigns of education and publicity were 

 launched in order to minimize the danger from carelessness, 

 thoughtlessness, and ignorance on the part of those whose pleas- 

 ure or business took them into the timber. 



We furnished practically every child in this district with a 

 neat, hard wood, brass bound ruler, on which were printed six 

 rules for the prevention and control of forest fires ; thoroughly 

 practical pocket carborundum whet-stones, with a warning printed 

 on the back, were distributed to campers, fishermen, and hunters ; 

 large, strong, tin drinking cups, with a warning enameled in the 

 bottom of the inside, were placed at springs and drinking places ; 

 catchy sequence signs, in a series of six, printed in red on tough 

 manila tagboard, were tacked up along trails and roads and on 

 depots, country hotels, blacksmith shops, hitching racks and livery 

 stables ; and boxes of safety matches, with the inevitable warning 

 printed on the label, were given to campers, hunters, and fisher- 

 men whom our patrolmen found in the timber. 



Certainly no effort was spared to keep constantly before the 

 public the danger arising from carelessness with fire in and about 

 the timbered district. This is undoubtedly having a good effect, 

 for not a single fire was started during the past season from care- 

 lessness with a camp fire. 



PREPARATION IN ADVANCE OF ACTUAL FIRES 



We have ample camp equipment and tools for any ordinary 

 season, and these are distributed throughout the district at patrol- 



