FOREST FIRES 15 



in order to make the system thoroughly efficient, the head 

 should have positive and active powers. The officer in charge 

 should be empowered to participate in fire prevention and 

 fire fighting on the ground, as well as to receive reports and 

 investigate the causes of fires. This defect in the law is 

 fundamental, and progress toward fire suppression must be 

 halting until the defect is remedied. 



The second defect in the law is closely related to the first. 

 The towns are too small geographically to have entire charge 

 in the matter of forest fires, which may, and often do, run 

 from town to town. For example, a fire has been known to 

 run over the line from one town into another, and the men 

 who were fighting it in one town refused to cross over the 

 line, for fear that their bills for work done in the adjoining 

 town might not be paid. 



The Commonwealth ought to have an officer with powers 

 and duties similar to those of state forest fire warden in other 

 states. He should have the confirmation, with right of rejec- 

 tion, of the fire wards who should be nominated by the towns. 

 He should have power to establish patrols in exposed situa- 

 tions during the dry season and personally to direct the fight 

 against severe fires and to order fire-fighters across a town 

 line with the assurance that their time would be paid for. 



The Commonwealth should bear a portion of the expense 

 involved in extinguishing and preventing forest fires. In 

 those states where the state has assumed the direction of the 

 fire protection system and shares the expense with the towns 

 or with the towns and counties, the results are much more 

 satisfactory than where the towns have the whole burden of 

 expense. Such a system while not relieving the private 

 owners and towns of responsibility brings about an effective 

 co-operation of all parties concerned that is not attained under 

 the present system. 



