CHIEF FIRE WARDEN. 29 



People will turn out without pay to protect their near 

 neighbors' property, but they will not go off some miles 

 distant to put out a fire which does not threaten present 

 danger. 



A MORE EFFICIENT SYSTEM. 



Let anyone assume for a moment that he is going to 

 undertake the work of preventing and controlling forest 

 and prairie fires. What would be his plan? What the 

 most effective and at the same time the most economical 

 system? Would he not think that the best plan would 

 be to find in each town a good, energetic man who 

 would attend to the work in his town? What would he 

 have to pay such a man? Such a man would have to 

 make it for the interest of two or three other good men 

 in distant parts of the town to watch and report to him 

 in dangerous seasons, and he would have to pay them 

 a little. In case citizens were called to help extinguish 

 a hire, they would be paid as is the case at present. 

 Now, assume that the best plan would be to employ one 

 good, energetic man for the service in each town, how 

 much would we have to pay him a year to secure his 

 faithful service? Would we expect to get him for less 

 than $50 a year? Well, there are six hundred town- 

 ships in this state requiring and receiving fire warden 

 service. The annual expense therefore of employing a 

 good, efficient man in each town at I50 a year would 

 amount to $30,000 annually, without counting the pay of 

 citizens who turn out and help extinguish fires. There 

 is the cost of what one might call an efficient system. 



Under the present system of making supervisors fire 

 wardens, and which was adopted on grounds of economy, 

 the present cost of fire warden service does not average 

 #10 in each town annually. And here is the point which 

 deserves attention — the present fire wardens receive so 

 little pay that it throws so much the more work upon the 



