INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



Forest Fires are burning every year in the Southern States, with 

 no organized effort being made to stop them, and are probably do- 

 ing $500,000 worth of damage every year in Virginia. They are espe- 

 cially severe after lumbering, and injure the young growth more than 

 the mature timber, and as a result probably over 200,000 acres in the 

 mountains of Northern and Central Virginia, which once were heav- 

 ily timbered, are now covered with nothing but brush, and are prac- 

 tically a barren waste. The same will be true after the timber is 

 cut in Southwest Virginia unless measures to prevent it are taken 

 in time. 



These facts are becoming better realized, and the experience of 

 certain Northern and Western States has demonstrated that by or- 

 ganized effort fires can be controlled. As a result Virginia now 

 has laws for fire-prevention and control, but they have never been 

 enforced for lack of an appropriation to this effect. 



The Laws of Virginia now provide: 



1. Fine and imprisonment for setting fire to woods. 



2. Anyone burning brush and allowing the fire to spread to a 

 neighbor's woods is liable to a fine and liable for the damage done 

 and the cost of fighting the fire. 



3. Logging and railroad locomotives, donkey and threshing en- 

 gines, etc., operated in, through, or near, forest or brush, must carry 

 spark arresters. Failure to comply is punishable by a fine. 



4. The appointment of Forest Wardens, under the direction of the 

 State Forester, to enforce the laws and fight fires. (Note. There 

 is at present no money with which to pay them. They cannot be 

 expected to work for nothing, unless they choose to.) 



