30 BULLETIN 1060, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



in the Quinault Indian Reservation. In Oregon they are confined 

 to the Siuslaw National Forest and several military and lighthouse 

 reservations. 



FIRE PROTECTION. 



The most important factor in the management of the Sitka spruce 

 type is fire protection. Without effective fire protection all other 

 steps in forest conservation are useless. The virgin forests of the 

 Sitka spruce type in the coastal belt are perhaps less likely to suffer 

 from fire than the Douglas fir forests of the Cascade Range, but they 

 are by no means immune. Systematic organized fire protection dur- 

 ing the two or three dry summer months is essential for the safety 

 not only of the virgin forest but also of the new crop of reproduc- 

 tion which follows logging. In the course of lumbering, special 

 precautions should be taken by operators to prevent the escape of 

 fire, for an accidental and uncontrolled fire in dry slashings may gain 

 such headway that it will do great damage to adjoining standing 

 timber and especially to areas of second-growth timber on older 

 cuttings. 



METHOD OF CUTTING. 



Clear cutting is the method of logging universally employed in the 

 spruce region ; it is the only method practicable in these dense forests 

 of very large trees. Moreover, Sitka spruce and western hemlock 

 when isolated by the removal of a part of the stand are so subject to 

 windthrow that any method of reserving seed trees of these species 

 or of making a selection cutting is technically undesirable. Steam 

 logging, moreover, fits in well with the requirements of the species, 

 except so far as it increases the fire hazard, for it helps to expose the 

 mineral soil. 



SLASH DISPOSAL. 



Slash disposal in the heavy forests of the Pacific coast region} 

 means the elimination of slash by broadcast burning. The objects 

 are to reduce the fire hazard in the debris left after logging, to pro- 

 vide a proper seed bed for reproduction, and to retard the spread of 

 insect and fungous diseases. 



By far the most important of the above objects is to reduce the fire 

 hazard. Since this is so the necessity for burning slash depends 

 largely upon the fire menace of the region. Although in the spruce 

 belt of Oregon and Washington the rainfall is abundant and fogs 

 are frequent throughout most of the year, there are two months or 

 more in the summer when slashings become dry, and uncontrollable 

 fires may start and do untold damage. Because of this Sitka spruce 

 slashings in this region should ordinarily be burned. 



