14 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



The organization of the work in the west was taken up immediately, 

 with the idea of securing as adequate protection as possible during the 

 balance of the fire season. Attention was particularly needed with 

 regard to the establishment of patrols, since the railway companies 

 were already proceeding with plans for fire-guard construction in the 

 prairie sections, under the previous Order ; and since the requirements 

 as to fire-protective appliances on locomotives had since 1907 been 

 efficiently administered under the direction of the Chief Operating 

 Officer. of the Board, who still retains charge of this feature of the fire 

 work. 



In connection with the previous hearings before the Board, the 

 Government of British Coltimbia had prepared a plan of patrols covering 

 lines in British Columbia with the exception of the Railway Belt*; and 

 a similar plan had been prepared by the Forestry Branch, Department 

 of the Interior, for lines in the Railway Belt and in the forested sections 

 of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. These plans were made 

 the basis of a series of conferences between designated representatives 

 of the railway companies, on the one hand, the Chief Fire Inspector 

 of the Board and designated representatives of the British Columbia 

 Government, and of the Forestry and Parks Branches, Department of the 

 Interior, on the other. Following these conferences, which were held 

 during the month of Jime, 19 12, letters of instruction to the railway 

 companies affected were written by the Chief Fire Inspector, embodying 

 the various measttres to be adopted tmder regulations 1 1 and 1 2 of 

 Order 16570, with particular reference to the establishment of special 

 patrols by railway companies. The aim was to provide an efficient 

 system of fire protection at a minimum of cost to the railway com- 

 panies. 



Efficient protection is obviously not only essential to the public 

 interest, but is the only correct policy from the point of view of the rail- 

 ways themselves. From the purely selfish point of view, this is true 

 because, with rapidly increasing sttunpage values, timber owners are 

 no longer willing to sit quietly by and aUow their property to be destroy- 

 ed without any attempt at recourse. The comparatively recent grant- 

 ing of several verdicts for very large svuns against railway companies 

 for fire damage caused by locomotives, has strongly emphasized this 

 feature of the situation. The interest alone, on some of the amounts 

 for which verdicts have been rendered, would provide efficient pro- 

 tection over hundreds of miles of railway line. 



From the long-time point of view, the argument is even stronger, 

 since forest fires will inevitably result in a future decrease of freight 



*The Railway Belt comprises a strip of land extending 20 miles on each side of 

 tlie main line of the Canadian Pacific railway in British Columbia. 



