FORESTRY COMMISSION. 137 



Session Laws of 1899, or concurrent resolution Xo. 17 of tlie Session 

 La\YS of 1901, are lieieby restored for sale or homestead entry as pro- 

 vided for other State lands. 



FOREST FIKE ACT, 1903. 



An act to provide for the preservation of the forests of this State and 

 for the prevention and suppression of forest and prairie fires. 



Section 1. The People of the State of Michigan enact. The State 

 Land Commissioner shall be Forest Commissioner of this State, and 

 his orders shall be supreme in all matters relating to the jjreservation 

 of the forests of this State and to the prevention and suppression 

 of forest tires as hereinafter jirovided. The supervisors of towns, 

 maj'ors of cities and the presidents of village councils are hereby con- 

 stituted fire wardens of their I'espective towns, cities and villages in 

 the State, and the supervisor of any township embracing more than one 

 surveyed township, shall appoint a fire warden for each of the surveyed 

 townships in his town in which he does not reside. The fire warden so 

 appointed shall be, where possible, a resident of the surveyed township 

 for which he is appointed. 



Sec. 2. The aforesaid Forest Connnissioner shall appoint a competent 

 deputy, to be known as chief fire warden, who, from personal experi- 

 ence, is familiar with the conditions of the forest and methods by which 

 flres may be controlled. Said chief Are warden shall receive a salary of 

 five hundred dollars per year, and shall hold his office during the pleas- 

 ure of the Forest Commissioner. He shall represent the authority of 

 the Forest Commissioner and it shall be his duty to enforce the pro- 

 visions of this act throughout the State. 



Sec. 3. The chief iire warden shall have general charge of the fire 

 warden force of the State and shall have authority to mass such Are 

 warden force as may be available at any special point to suppress fires. 

 In case the fire warden force of any locality is deemed by said chief fire 

 warden inadequate to prevent or suppress forest fires, he shall appoint 

 temporarily needed fire wardens whose duties and authority shall be the 

 same as herein given to town supervisors acting as fire wardens. He 

 shall cooperate with any police or military force of the United States 

 government which mixy be detailed to guard the national domain from 

 fire; he shall investigate the extent of the forests in the State, together 

 with the amounts and varieties of the wood and the timber growing 

 herein, the damages done to them from time to time by forest fires and 

 the causes of such fires, the method used, if any, to promote the regrowth 

 of timber, and any other important facts relating to forest interests, 

 which may be required by the forest commissioner. The information so 

 gathered, with his suggestions relative thereto, shall be included in a 

 report to be made by him annually to the forest commissioner. 



Sec. 4. The forest commissioner shall provide and officially sign an 

 abstract of the penal laws of this act, with such rules and regulations in 

 accord there^xith as he may deem necessary, and on or before the first 

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