20 rOTLATCH TIM15ER PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION 



thistles and fire weeds. The dry season was not particularly long, 

 but high winds were almost constant and they dried everything 

 out worse than in 1910. This made it very difficult in the after- 

 noon to do anything more than to hold the fire line. In the green 

 timber little trouble was experienced in handling fires after men 

 were got to them, but the fires were so widely scattered and pack 

 horses so scarce that in several instances the high wind drove 

 the fire, which ordinarily would have been handled with little 

 loss, through fine bodies of green timber. 



Jt was often found hard to impress on crews of green men 

 the importance of watching and holding what trench they cut. 

 Occasionally two or three miles of trail were cut and later al- 

 lowed to burn over behind the crew when a little care would 

 have saved the whole thing. 



TOOLS 



At the beginning of the season all tools and equipment be- 

 longing to the association were branded "P. T. P. A." and orders 

 were given to so brand all new tools that came on the works, but 

 during the big fires it was often necessary to buy tools and ship 

 them directly to the fires and these were not branded. After the 

 fires were finally extinguished it was generally found that a good 

 many of the axes and shovels had been burned. As some of the 

 settlers and logging crews brought their own tools with them, 

 when any such were burned the association replaced them. A 

 great many unbranded tools were probably stolen, and some were 

 no doubt mixed up with the lumber company's tools. The only 

 way to prevent this happening again will be to brand everything 

 before it goes into the woods, even at the sacrifice of time. 



CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 



The number of men that a straw boss or foreman can han- 

 dle depends somewhat on the character of the ground and the fire, 

 and largely on the kind of men he has. With" inexperienced men 

 12 or 15 is about all one straw boss or foreman can get good re- 

 sults from, while with a crew of woodsmen one boss can handle 

 50 men. It is unfortunate that we can not always get enough 

 woodsmen with whom to fight our forest fires. They are much 

 more efficient than almost any class, of men we can get, there- 

 fore they are very much the cheapest help in the end. 



The past season has plainly shown the need of more care 

 in putting out slashing fires and keeping at them until they are 

 entirely out. 



We were seriously handicapped late in the season by lack of 

 horses. We had plenty of horses for an ordinary season, but this 



