170 Third Annual Eeport of the 



region. These counties are as follows: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, 

 Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Oneida, St. Lawrence, Sara- 

 toga, Warren and Washington. There are four forest preserve 

 counties containing 2,913,000 acres in the Catskill region, These 

 are as follows: Delaware, Greene, Sullivan and Ulster. This 

 gives a total of 13,686,000 acres within the Forest Preserve. 

 Within this area there are over 1,600,000 acres of land owned by 

 the State. 



The work of the Conservation Commission in protecting the 

 forests of the State from fire is now confined to the more densely 

 forested portions of the forest preserve counties. The area is 

 defined by law as being comprised in 78 towns in the Adirondacks 

 and 19 towns in the Catskills, a total of 97 " fire towns," the 

 aggregate area of which is approximately 7,270,000 acres. 

 Although the Conservation Department is not charged with the 

 duty of looking after fire protection in the State outside of the 

 fire towns, there is a section of the town law which provides that 

 town supervisors shall be ex-officio fire officers. 



Office Force 



The work of fire protection is directly in charge of the Superin- 

 tendent of State Forests and under him, of the Assistant Super- 

 intendent of State Forests. 



The auditor of fire accounts is charged with the duty of ex- 

 amining carefully all bills which may be submitted by the field 

 force and of auditing these bills if correct. These bills include 

 items incurred in connection with the erection of observation sta- 

 tions or telephone lines, the purchase of tools and other equip- 

 ment for fire fighting, the traveling expenses incurred by mem- 

 bers of the field force and the bills submitted for expenses in- 

 curred in connection with the actual fighting of fires. 



As mentioned before in these pages, the entire expense of 

 fighting fire, including the salaries and expenses of the fire patrol 

 force, mountain observation stations, and railroad inspectors, is 

 paid by the State. The total expense incurred in connection with 

 the hiring of temporary labor to fight fires is paid in the first in- 

 stance by the State, but in November of each year, bills for one- 

 half of this expense are sent to the towns in which the fires occur. 



