I'lGUKE .50. — While much moisture ordinarily falls as snow in the winter, 

 the summers in northern Idaho are hot and dry as a rule. In the critical 

 seasons vast areas of tinder-dry forest have been transformed from green 

 to ash. The Freeman Lake fire of 1931 started one morning and spread to 

 20,000 acres by 11 p. m. the same day-~l,600 acres an hour for 12\-i hours. 

 A combination of the "right" conditions enabled the Selway fires of 1934 

 to cover 252,000 acres before being corralled. 



The magnitude of the area loss during 1934 (324,000 acres) 

 is a reminder that it may be econotnically impracticable to 

 pinch off the large fires completely, particularly on the 

 national forests, where 80 percent of the fires are lightning- 

 caused and often relatively inaccessible. As will be shown 

 later, however, even with the less satisfactory accomplish- 

 ment ot 1934, definite progress has been made. 



Development of Fire Protection on 

 National Forests 



To appreciate the progress that has been matie in fire 

 protection, one must consider northern Idaho as it was 

 in 1910 and as it is today. The development ot national- 

 forest fire protection may be used to illustrate this progress. 

 In 1910 the greater portion of the forest area was rela- 

 tively inaccessible. In the 6 million acres of national 

 forest, there were but 29 miles of Forest Service roads. 

 Compare that with 3,'>2X miles in 1938. The detection 

 system was equally rudimentary. There were few lookout 

 stations and those often without telephones to report to 

 the ranger, who in turn had neither men, tt)ols, nor trans- 

 portatit)n facilities adequate to cope with the situation. 

 In no way was the fire organization equipped for the early 

 iletection and fast, strong attack that recent experience 

 has shown to be absoluteh' essential tlurinij critical fire 

 seasons. 



The long-time fire job for three decailes has been to 

 expand the road and trail network, to construct alnmst 

 from scratch a iletection system, and to train a competent 

 sujiiiression organization a prodigious task requirini; a 

 heavy capital investment. I'he results of this effort are 

 favorably apparent iti the reduction of area burned. In 

 figure 31 this progress is illustrated in a gener.d way by 



comparing one of these factors — road mileage — with th 

 area burned during bad fire years. 



Two of the six critical fire years referred to have fallen 

 in each of the three decades (fig. 32). In the latest decade 

 (1930-39) the average annual area burned was but 47,000 

 acres, as compared with 277,000 acres in the first decade. 

 The periodic strain upon the fire organization can be 

 imagined from the fact that in the 2 bad years of the htest 

 decade 415,000 acres burned and in the eight "easy" years 

 only 56,000 acres burned. In one way, the segregation of 

 "easy" and "bad" years on the basis of the acreage 

 burned tends to obscure some of the progress which has 





-4000 





-3.500 j^Qpjj miLEflGE 









NATIONAL FORESTS 









-3000 _,'^^^-'^"" 









- 2.500 







ul 









VI 



- 2P00 













- 1.500 















- 1000 





















- 500 









1 \ 



























1910 



1919 1926 1929 1931 1934 1938 







rl5 













m4vV:;u« 



5 







PREP BURHED 



H 







NATIONAL FORESTS 



^ 



f 



- 10 











1 



- 5 









THE NEXT 

















ONE 











? 

















1910 1919 1926 1929 1931 1934 



CRITICAL FIRE YEARS 



Figure .11. — On nationmt forttU tht txfttttsion in nutJ milt*j:t is imHc*- 

 lice cf the general improvfmenl in protection ftuilititi, »*iVA **/ mmdt 

 it possible tc dt<rt*st burnrJ ared in tht critic*! y fairs jinte 1910. 



31 



