196 



TIMBER RESOURCES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE 



ALL PRIVATE 95.7% 

 ALL PUBLIC 4.3% 



NORTH 

 SOUTH 

 WEST 



WEST 



west includes Coastal Alaska 



Figure 73 



and much of the 1952 fire impact occurred on these 

 acres. Most of the 30 miUion unprotected acres 

 in the Plains are noncommercial. 



The most serious situation is in the South, where 

 31,554,000 acres, almost all commercial forest 

 land, were unprotected in 1952. The 9 million 

 acres of unprotected land in the Southern Rocky 

 Mountain Region are almost all noncommercial. 



Most Unprotected Land Is 

 Privately Owned 



Nearly 425 million acres of the land needing 

 protection is in private ownership and 18.5 per- 

 cent of this, or 78.6 million acres, is unprotected. 

 The commercial portions of these improtected 

 lands are primarily in the South and in parts of 

 the Central Region. As of 1952, the big share of 

 such lands was in Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, 

 Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri; 

 Oklahoma and Texas each have large areas of un- 



protected land, but most of it is noncommercial. 

 The acreage of protected and unprotected land by 

 ownerships is shown in table 122. 



Intensity of Protection Varies Greatly 



Since the fire protection problem is characterized 

 by extreme fluctuations in time and place as the 

 activities of fire-starting agencies fluctuate and 

 fire weather varies, it is almost axiomatic that the 

 success of a control program depends on the ability 

 of an organization to meet critical situations and 

 peak-load periods. A measure of the intensity or 

 level of the fire protection effort is therefore a 

 useful gage in the evaluation of the status of 

 protection. 



To get a general measure of the adequacy of cur- 

 rent protection, the effectiveness of existing pro- 

 tection was rated in four broad classes. These 

 classes express the ability of fire organizations, 

 with their 1952 facilities, to meet successfully the 

 critical situations of fire danger and numbers of 



