192 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE 



Table 116. — Growth impact on commercial jorest 

 land resulting from damage in 1952, by section 

 of the United States and Coastal Alaska 



GROWING STOCK 



Section 



Mortal- 

 ity 



Growth 

 loss 



Growth 



impact 



North 



Million 



cu. ft. 



1, 146 



629 



1,635 



Million 

 cu. ft. 

 3, 159 

 3,370 

 1,052 



Million 

 cu. ft. 

 4, 305 

 3,999 

 2,687 



Per- 

 cent 

 38 



South _ 



36 



West _ _- . 



24 







Total, United States __ 

 Coastal Alaska 



3,410 

 100 



7,581 

 118 



10,991 

 218 



98 

 2 



Total, United States 

 and Coastal Alaska. _ 



3,510 



7,699 



11, 209 



100 



SAWTIMBER 



North 



Million 

 bd.-ft. 

 2,079 

 1, 768 

 8,428 



Million 



bd.-ft. 



11,757 



13, 668 



5,232 



Million 



bd.-ft. 

 13,836 

 15, 436 

 13, 660 



Per- 

 cent 

 32 



South 



West 



35 

 31 



Total, United States. 

 Coastal Alaska 



12, 275 



392 



30, 657 

 503 



42, 932 



895 



98 

 2 



Total, United States 

 and Coastal Alaska.. 



12, 667 



31, 160 



43, 827 



100 



The Current Forest Fire Situation 



An existing forest fire situation can best be 

 characterized by the number of fires that occur, 

 what causes them, where they start, and how many 

 acres they burn. Such a basis has been used to 

 describe the fire problem tliat exists today. 



Man-Caused Fires Still a Problem 



In 1952, as in many years previously, the activi- 

 ties of man caused the vast majority of forest fires. 

 Even in the West, where lightning storms repeat- 

 edly sweep over highly flammable forests, more 

 than half of the fires were man caused. Of the 

 1952 national total of 128,000 fires, 94 percent were 

 man caused and only 6 percent were due to light- 

 ning (table 118). 



Industrial activities, mainly railroads and lum- 

 bering, accounted for 5 percent of the fires in 1952. 

 Although no exact figures are available, fires from 

 these sources have sometimes been extremely 

 damaging. Railroad fires are concentrated in the 

 valleys or near the bottom of slopes, where 

 topography is conducive to rapid spread. Fires 

 that start in logging operations usually burn in 

 heavy concentrations of slash and thus are difficult 

 to control even when small. Many loggers and 



most timber operators recognize the seriousness of 

 lumbering fires and have made outstanding progress 

 in recent years in preventing them. The rail- 

 roads have also done much to reduce the number 

 of fires. 



The general public, the individual woods user, 

 and the farmer are by far the most numerous starters 

 of fire. In 1952 almost 100,000, or 78 percent of 

 all fires, were started by campers, smokers, debris 

 burners, and incendiarists. Most of the 13,710 

 fires in the miscellaneous category were also started 

 by people. Continued effort to cut down the 

 number of such fires obvioush^ is needed if fire 

 losses are to be reduced. 



The South leads the Nation in numbers of fires 

 with 86,091, or 67 percent of the total. Incendia- 

 rism, debris burning (mostly in connection with 

 farming activities), and smoking accounted for 

 69,005 fires. Since 82 percent of the growth 

 impact from fire occurs in the South, this 

 region clearly holds the key to future timber 

 losses from fire. 



In the North, smokers and debris burners 

 started 16,625 of the 28,474 fires (58 percent) in 

 1952. That year this section had 22 percent of the 

 national fire total. 



In the West, lightning is still the greatest single 

 fire starter, but smokers account for 17 percent of 

 the burns. 



Area Burned in 1952 Near Current 

 Average 



The 1952 fire season was slightly more serious 

 than average from the standpoint of acreage 

 burned: 13,210,000 acres of commercial forest 

 as compared to the 1948-52 average of 12,133,000 

 acres (table 119). 



The situation is especially serious in the South, 

 where 84 percent of the losses on commercial 

 forest land occur. The 5 States of the Southeast 

 Region contributed 7,925,000 acres to the annual 

 average of 12,133,000 acres burned. Only 

 1,933,000 acres, or 16 percent of the average 

 national loss, occurred in the entire North and 

 West. In spite of the favorable average situation 

 in these sections or in any particular region, the 

 fact remains that in any one year an exceptionally 

 heavy loss can occur. Thus, in 1952 the North 

 burned twice its average and the Middle Atlantic 

 Region almost three and one-half times its average. 



Burned Area Mostly on Private Land 



Almost 96 percent of the total 1952 burn 

 occurred on lands in private ownership with the 

 remainder about evenly split between Federal and 

 other public lands (fig. 73). Of the 14,082,000 

 acres burned on private lands, 66 percent w'as in 

 the South and 33 percent in the North, principally 



