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CHAPTER VII. 



FOREST FIRE DISTRICTS. 



From a forest fire point of view, California should be divided into 

 at least three districts, viz.: 



1st. The Redwood belt, along the Northern Coast. 



2nd. The Sierra Nevada. 



3rd. The forests of Southern California. 



The first district is in private hands and has no government 

 reserves. The climate and principal tree growth be.ng less dominated 

 or subject to fire than our other forest climates and woods, remove 

 this district from as immediate an interest to the forester on this 

 subject as the other two have. For our Southern ranges in general, 

 fire prevention is our only policy. 



THE SECO.sfD AND THIRD DISTRICTS CONSIDERED TOGETHER. 

 The statements of early visitors to these forests, the statements 

 of Indians, and the condition of the forests, all go to show that the 

 Indians habitually and regularly burnt the forest fioor of parts of the 

 Sierra Nevada. In the Yosemite Valley, where there are black oaks 

 the acorns of which are sought by the Indians for food, there was a 

 regular Indian clearing system. Every autumn the valley was put 

 under the charge of four captains by the chief for the purpose of 

 burning it over. When the whites first visited the valley they found 

 it an open meadow, with only a few large trees in it. Under the whites 

 the fires have been kept out. I'he result is an invasion by the forest 

 into the valley. Entire sections have grown up to dense forest, and 

 from 7^ear to year the remaining meadows were encroached on until 

 some disappeared and all were reduced. This continued until the 

 views in the valley were much masked. The landscape treatment 

 necessary for a park like the Yosemite demanded that the views should 

 be opened. Two years ago the State undertook this landscape work, 

 spending about seven thousand dollars in the most important clearings. 



