State and Federal Governments Co-operate. 



During the last year there were 609 firewardens 

 under appointment from the State Forester. Two 

 hundred and seventeen of these were paid by the U. S. 

 Forest Service, but requested State appointments also 

 in order to take advantage of the extra powers con- 

 ferred by the State forest laws. Fifteen counties paid 

 firewardens who received appointments from this 

 office. Both the United States rangers and the county 

 wardens are picked men, and it is due, in large part, 

 Mala Jjfc, to them that so many fires were stopped before they 



Jtorwtiy* ' had covered an area of 10 acres. The remainder wciv 



volunteers who did excellent work in fighting fires, 

 but who naturally accomplished little in the way of 

 patrol. Thus many fires were allowed to gain such 

 headway as to give serious trouble though they might 

 have been easily extinguished if they had been attacked 

 promptly. But it would be unreasonable to ask a 

 volunteer to spend perhaps a whole day investigating 

 a suspicious smoke in some inaccessible portion of the 

 mountains without compensation. It is greatly to the 

 credit of the volunteers, however, that they actually 

 performed much more in the w r ay of fire protection 

 than could be reasonably expected of them. The fire- 

 wardens issued burning permits to the number of 

 1,360 during the year. 



Mountaineers Suffer Most. 



Along with the $1,000,000 or more that forest fires 

 cost the commonwealth last year should be included 

 an item to cover the expense of fire fighting and patrol. 

 This item is very difficult to reduce to dollars and 

 cents, since it properly includes not only money paid 

 out directly for these purposes, but also services vol- 

 untarily furnished by those threatened by fires for 

 which no bills were presented. Commuted to cash the 

 total sum would probably reach $100,000. Part of 

 this was paid from some of the county treasuries ; part 

 was paid by the United States Government from the 

 public funds and a very important share of the burden 

 fell upon ranchers, stockmen, timbermen and others 

 having property or interests in the forested region, 

 who not only had to stand the direct loss occasioned 



(6) 



