Canadian Forestry Journal, April, ipi6. 



487 



Fire Protection in Pine Logging 



The Value of Any Protection is the Money Worth of the Loss it 



Averts. 



By Cocrt DiiBois, 

 District Forester, U. S. Forest Service, San Francisco, Cal. 



AVhen one walks about any large 

 •city he sees at frequent intervals ex- 

 pensive buildings and, through their 

 open doorways, costly-looking ap- 

 paratus or fine horses that look like 

 ready money. From four to six big 

 husky four-dollar-a-day men in blue 

 shirts are tilted back in chairs in 

 front of each one of these houses. 

 On every other corner one notices a 

 red painted iron box on a post that 

 must be connected up with an elec- 

 tric wiring system, for which real 

 money was paid. This all means 

 that the risk of fires starting in a 

 city and the value and inflammabil- 

 ity of the structures subjected to 

 this risk are so great that a system 

 adequate to protect it is maintain- 

 ed, practically regardless of the cost 

 of that system. I have seen many 

 newspaper criticisms of the ade- 

 quacy or efficiency of city fire de- 

 partments, but I have never seen 

 printed or heard a citizen utter a 

 complaint of the high cost of the 

 system. 



In a well ordered factory you will 

 see an $(S,000 automatic sprinkler 

 system, $2,500 worth of 4-inch water 

 piping, and a $10 steel reel with $15 

 worth of fire hose on it at the end of 

 the hall on each floor — an invest- 

 ment of $10,575. For what? To 

 prevent $10,576 worth of damage. 

 The value of any fire protection, 

 then, may be stated as the money 

 worth of the loss it averts. It can 

 •cost anything less than the loss 



which is reasonably sure to occur 

 without it. Therefore, to arrive at a 

 definite conclusion of what is a jus- 

 tifiable sum to spend on fire protec- 

 tion in any activity, it is necessary 

 to inquire how likely fires are to 

 start and the cash damage they may 

 be expected to do, once started. 

 Problem of Fire Logging. 



My talk will be confined to the 

 fire question, because I don't know 

 anything about any other kind of 

 logging. 



Contrary to popular opinion on 

 the subject, the cause statistics col- 

 lected by the Forest Service show 

 lumbering activities to be the least 

 prolific source of fires in the Nation- 

 al Forests, only a trifle over 4 per 

 cent, (literally 4.067 per cent.) of 

 the total number occurring from this 

 cause in the eight year period from 

 1908 to 1915. Nevertheless, because 

 the total number is high — 5507 — the 

 number caused by logging opera- 

 tions — 22-1 — is high when viewed in- 

 dependently. 



I know of one outfit that had 16 

 fires on its works this summer. In 

 any activity in the woods some 

 measure of the number of fires 

 which can reasonably be expected is 

 gained from the extent of the legi- 

 timate use of fire which must neces- 

 sarily accompany it. In the typical 

 pine logging job there are perhaps 

 200 men in the woods, 80 per cent, 

 of whom smoke cigarettes or a pipe 

 while working; 6 steam logging 



