28 CLEARWATER TIMBER PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION 



(Eommitto'a 



Clearwater Timber Protective Association Season 1914 



Gentlemen : 



The past summer will be remembered as one of the worst 

 fire seasons that we have experienced since the Clearwater Tim- 

 ber Protective Association was organized eight years ago and in 

 some respects was even worse than the season of 1910. Without 

 the efficient organization that we had there is no doubt but that 

 there would have been an area burned over fully as great as in 

 1889 when many thousands of acres of pine was destroyed. 



The snow was gone a month earlier than usual, and though 

 we had some light rains during May and June they were of so 

 little importance that they only halted the evaporation caused 

 by the sun and wind for a few days. During July and August 

 we had a few days that were partly cloudy but we had no rain 

 nor did we have any until September 7th after which date there 

 was sufficient rain to relieve us of further worry. 



The latter part of June the fire committees of the Coeur 

 d'Alene Timber Protective Association, the Potlatch Timber 

 Protective Association, and the Clearwater Timber Protective 

 Association, accompanied by Dr. W. L. Carlyle, Dean of Ag- 

 riculture of the University of Idaho, and Dr. C. H. Shattuck, 

 Professor of Forestry of the University of Idaho, made a joint 

 trip of inspection over a large portion of the territory of the 

 three associations. We found that the fire warden who had start- 

 ed a crew on June 1st had the trails nearly all in good shape and 

 had built a number of new ones and that he had telephone lines 

 repaired from the damage that always occurs in the winter from 

 snow and falling trees and was building some new telephone 

 lines. For itemized list of trails and telephone lines we would 

 refer to Fire Warden's report. 



Though we had quite a number of lightning fires during 

 June and July, our lookouts and patrolmen were able to locate 

 and control them at once with practically no loss of timber. 



The latter part of July was extremely hot and dry and the 

 moisture from the decayed vegetation and leaf mold was rapidly 

 carried away by the constant winds. On August 2nd a lightn- 

 ing fire on Washington Creek that had been set on July 28th 



