Rather generally in the South, the percent of burn 
is too high. In the North Rocky Mountain re- 
gion, drought, lightning, and other factors combine 
about once every 5 years to set the stage for dis- 
astrous fires; here major effort will be required to 
keep the annual burn below one-tenth of 1 percent, 
the maximum amount consistent with satisfactory 
forest management for this region. Protection 
will need to be stepped up in many key areas in 
the Pacific Northwest. And in California, where 
timber, watershed, and recreation values are high 
and fires are unusually destructive, protection is 
clearly inadequate. 
National-forest protection, then, should aim at: 
(1) Holding the annual burn on every working 
circle of commercial forest land to 0.20 percent of 
the area or less; (2) complete exclusion of fire 
from certain high-value areas, including critical 
watershed lands; (3) elimination of incendiary 
fires and reduction of man-caused fires to the acci- 
dental minimum; and (4) prevention of disaster 
fires—the big ones that get away. 
Finally, forest-fire control effort and expendi- 
tures should be commensurate with national-forest 
values and the public benefits that accrue. New 
circumstances—such as the increased air travel into 
wild country, the opening up of remote areas. to 
timber cutting, and the constantly changing public 
attitudes and demands—may profoundly affect 
forest-fire control on the national forests. We look 
increasingly to national forests for timber and 
other benefits. Their values are growing. Re- 
flecting this is the trend in revenues from them, 
which have more than tripled since 1940. Wise 
public policy therefore calls for rising standards 
of fire protection, particularly for those key tracts 
that produce high income or ather essential 
services. 
Fire Protection on Other Federal Lands 
Other Federal forest lands totaling about 54 
million acres, of which 15 million is commercial, 
have a fire problem paralleling that of the national 
forests. ‘They are administered by agencies of the 
Department of the Interior and are intermingled 
with some 121 million acres of wild nonforest 
lands also in need of protection. 
About 54 percent of the forest land is in grazing 
districts, public domain, and Oregon and Cali- 
fornia revested grant lands administered by the 
Bureau of Land Management. Other categories 
include 16 million acres in Indian reservations; 
Forests and National Prosperity 
7 million acres of national-park lands; and slightly 
less than 1 million acres held by the Bureau of 
Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service. 
Progress in fire control has been variable. Most 
forests in Indian reservations and national parks 
have been under protection for many years. ‘The 
others have been brought under protection more 
recently. Fire protection on grazing-district lands 
dates from 1935, when they were placed under ad- 
ministration. For most of the lands the greatest 
progress has been since 1933 as a result of the 
Civilian Conservation Corps program. 
Except for the Indian and the O&C holdings, 
these forest lands are administered primarily for 
purposes other than timber production. In the 
main, protection criteria have not been formulated 
by which to measure results. 
Data for the several categories of land, 1941—45, 
are roughly indicative of protection accomplish- 
ments, although they apply to all lands under 
protection—predominantly nonforest lands (table 
26). They show an average yearly burn of less 
than a million acres or about three-fifths of 1 per- 
cent of the 152 million acres under protection. 
TABLE 26.—Average annual burn on lands protected 
by the Department of the Interior, 1941-45 1 
ei fe ‘ 5 Area 
Administering Service protected Area burned 
Million acres \Thousand acres Percent 
Grazing Service... 99.4 758 0.76 
Office of Indian Affairs 36.4 134 37 
National Park Service ...... 9.6 12 12 
Fish and Wildlife 
SERVI Cevna cement eulee 4.0 26 65 
O&C Administration... 2.5 3 a2 
otal eRe tires 151.9 2933 61 
1Exclusive of unreserved public domain lands for which 
data are incomplete; these lands are scattered and only 
partly under protection. 
° Of the 776,000 acres burned annually from 1942 to 1945, 
only about 5 percent was forest land. 
National-park and Oregon and California re- 
vested lands make the best showing, with an 
average annual burn of only a little more than 
one-tenth of 1 percent of the protected area. 
Grazing-district lands apparently receive the poor- 
est protection, the average annual burn being about 
three-fourths of 1 percent for the 5-year period.%2 
Fire-control needs here aline closely with those 
on national forests. ‘The objective for the Oregon 
“The actual burn on forest lands may have been some- 
what less in view of the greater fire hazard and lower stand- 
ards of protection on the nonforest lands. 
81 
