Canadian Forestry Journal, September, ipij. 



199 



GUARDING THE RESERVES 



The proportion of the area of forest reserves burned over in igi4 tvas two one- 

 hundredths of one per cent. 



Big improvement was made in securing brush disposal after lumbering. 

 Campers, surveyors and prospectors were the greatest individual causes of fires. 

 More intensive patrol will be necessary in dry years. 

 Settlers fires in prairie provinces require stricter control by an amended law. 



The annual report of the Director of 

 Forestry for 1914 as recently issued 

 contains information of decided im- 

 portance and interest and every reader 

 of the Canadian Forestry Journal 

 should avail himself of a copy. 



In the summary, Mr. R. H. Camp- 

 bell, the Director, says in part: 



"As far as control of the fire situa- 

 tion is concerned, the past year has 

 been a very satisfactory one. The pro- 

 portion of the area of the forest re- 

 serves burned over was only two one- 

 hundredths of one per cent, and of the 

 area outside of forest reserves nine 

 one-hundredths of one per cent. 

 While this is largely due to the fav- 

 ourable season, the good result is also 

 due to a considerable extent to the in- 

 crease in numbers and efficiency of the 

 staff of rangers, to the increased fac- 

 ilities for preventing fire in the forest 

 reserves, due to the improvements 

 such as roads, trails, telephone lines. 

 and lookout stations (which make ac- 

 cess to the reserve easier and enable 

 the rangers to reach fires quickly), to 

 the education of the public as to the 

 danger of fire, and to the enforcement 

 of the special provisions of the Rail- 

 way Act relating to railways. The or- 

 ganization of the work has been more 

 thorough and on the whole, with some 

 exceptions, the personnel of the ran- 

 ger staff has advanced both in qualifi- 

 cation and efficiency. If it were ar- 

 ranged that appointments were made 

 on special qualifications for the work 

 required and that appointments were 

 to be permanent during good behav- 

 iour and efficiency, a decided forward 



step would be taken which should en- 

 sure the placing of the staff on a per- 

 manent basis of efficiency. 



A decided advance has been made in 

 the question of brush disposal after 

 lumbering operations, and it is to be 

 regretted that this branch has not been 

 authorized to take up the matter as it 

 relates to the timber berths held un- 

 der license in the forest reserves. 



Work of Fire Rangers. 



In regard to fire ranging, the Dir- 

 ector says : 



"The fire patrol outside of the forest 

 reserves covers the large extent of 

 more or less forested land from the 

 southeastern boundary of ^Manitoba 

 through the northern part of Mani- 

 toba. Saskatchewan and Alberta, an 

 extent of 205,344 square miles. It also 

 covers most of the Railway Belt in the 

 province of British Columbia. The 

 patrol is carried out as fully as the ap- 

 propriation will permit, but the large 

 extent of territory involved makes the 

 patrol for each fire ranger very large 

 and the educative work done by the 

 ranger is more effective than the ac- 

 tual work of extinguishing fires. 



There were twelve fire-ranging dis- 

 tricts, each under charge of a chief fire 

 ranger. 



The districts and number of fire ran- 

 gers employed were as follows : — 



The number of fires reported was 

 511. and the total area burned over 

 was 149,456 acres, of which over one- 

 half was grass-land, so that the pro- 

 portion of the forested area which was 

 burned over was about nine one-hun- 



