590 



Canadian Foreslry Journal, June, igi6. 



Stopping Fires By Publicity 



Are Canadian Lumbermen Utilizing Modern Educational Weapons 

 As Their Own Financial Interests- Demand ? 



The use of publicity in the build- 

 ing up of forest protection senti- 

 ment has been employed only to the 

 minimum degree by the lumbermen 

 of Canada. Inspired by the excel- 

 lent results achieved by the West- 

 ern Forestry and Conservation As- 

 sociation of the United States, the 

 British Columbia Forest Service 

 and some commercial firms have 

 gripped the idea and set it to work. 

 So satisfactory and promising have 

 been the results of popular "educa- 

 tion in forest guarding as to justify 

 an extension to every forested prov- 

 ince of tlie Dominion. Quebec, par- 

 ticularly within the zone of the co- 

 operative associations, has accom- 

 plished something in the distribu- 

 tion of educative literature and the 

 carrying out of a personal propa- 

 ganda by the precept and example 

 of the fire rangers. 



The adherence of all wide-awake 

 lumbermen to the needs of vigorous 

 mutual and governmental action in 

 the cause of forest protection 

 against fire is growing at a rapid 

 rate. Limit holders who a few 

 years ago shook their heads at the 

 thought of employing protective de- 

 vices other than natural rainfalls, 

 have quit their old-fashioned' posi- 

 tion and lined up with the "mod- 

 erns." The first experimental vears 

 of the St. ]\Iaurice and Lower Ot- 

 tawa co-operative associations in 

 Quebec have helped greatlv in a 

 general conversion. Actual ' saving 

 of timber has become an accomplish- 

 ed fact. Old-time losses have been 

 cut to fractions. Statistical proof 

 has been produced not only in Oue- 

 bec and British Columbia but from 

 many parts of the United States, 



where brains have been given a 

 chance to demonstrate the folly of 

 tolerating wholesale fire damage in 

 timber areas. No longer need the 

 progressive lumberman point to re- 

 sults accomplished in Europe; he 

 has results at his own door. No 

 longer have the provincial and fed- 

 eral administrations the excuse that 

 forest fires are a necessary evil 

 peculiarly associated with the Can- 

 adian timberlands. Facts have 

 shown this to be false ground, and 

 have also shown that whenever any 

 of otu- government forest depart- 

 ments care to institute genuine for- 

 est protection, they need not step 

 beyond the borders of the Dominion 

 to find how it shoidd be done. 



The immediate causes of forest 

 fires differ somewhat with the local- 

 ity. Settlers' clearing operations 

 cause enormous losses in one dis- 

 trict, and in another the railway, 

 sportsman, river-driver, prospector, 

 may equally. share the onus of dam- 

 age. Nearly always, however, hu- 

 man hands and human heads must 

 bear the responsibility. 



Fires Mostly Accidental 



Laws that promise punishment 

 will do much in curoino- some 

 classes of incendiarists, but it must 

 be remembered that nearly all forest 

 fires are. in the main sense, acciden- 

 tal. Few settlers deliberately burn 

 the timber of the limit holder, al- 

 though their carelessness is almost 

 as guilty. Few campers deliberately 

 desire to destroy the haunts of a 

 thousand other campers; so with 

 the river-drivers and the prospector 

 and the others. 



This lack of deliberateness in the 

 setting of dangerous fires in forest 



