FOREST PROTECTION 



197 



Table 120. — Area of commercial and noncommer- 

 cial forest land ' burned in United States and 

 Coastal Alaska, by ownership, 1952 



Ownership 



Total 



area 



burned 



Propor- 

 tion of 



total 

 burned 



area 



Proportion 

 of all forest 

 land re- 

 quiring 

 protection 



Private: 



North 



South 



Thou- 

 sand 

 acres 

 4, 599 

 9,287 

 196 



Percent 



31.3 



63. 1 



1.3 



Percent 

 2. 69 

 5. 19 



West . 



. 26 







Total, all private 



14, 082 



95. 7 



3.32 



Federal : 



National forest 



Bureau of Land Man- 

 agement 



149 



30 



64 



1 



118 



1. 



. 2 

 .5 



. 8 



. 11 



. 08 



Indian 



. 36 



National parks _ 



. 02 



Other Federal 



1. 05 







Total, all Federal 



Other public 



362 

 267 



2. 5 

 1.8 



. 17 

 . 80 







Total, all public 



629 



4.3 



. 25 



All ownerships 



1 14, 711 



100.0 



2. 18 







' 1,501,000 acres of total burn was on noncommercial 

 forest land and on nonforest lands in California and 

 North Dakota, comprised as follows: 1,189,000 acres in 

 North, 158,000 in South, and 154,000 in West 



' Negligible. 



fires that are typically encountered in each State 

 and region. Definitions of the four classes follow: 



Class 1. — Protection adequate to meet the fire 

 situation in worst years and under serious 

 peak loads. 



Class 2. — Protection adequate to meet tlie aver- 

 age fire situation, but failures likely in the 

 worst years and under peak loads. 



Class 3. — Protection adequate to meet fire situ- 

 ations only in the easy years, and failures 

 frequent in average or worse years. 



Class 4. — Unprotected. 



About 100 million acres, or 15 percent of the 

 total forest land requiring protection, received 

 Class 1 protection in 1952 (table 123). Wlien 

 viewed realistically, this area on which adequate 

 protection can be achieved during the worst years 

 is relatively small. In contrast, 357 million acres, 

 or 53 percent, received Class 2 protection. Con- 

 trol failures and heavy losses can be expected on 

 Class 2 land when organizations are swamped with 

 an overload of fire work due to large numbers of 

 fires burning under highly dangerous conditions. 

 An additional 135 million acres, or 20 percent, re- 

 ceived Class 3 protection; here frequent failures 



and heavy losses can be expected even in average 

 years. During bad years, the efl^ort needed to 

 meet emergencies on this poorly protected area is 

 an added overload on the 357 million acres of 

 Class 2 land, making 73 percent of our protected 

 forest area subject to heavy losses in extremely bad 

 fire years. 



A big protection job is yet to be done on the 

 private lands. The percentage of such land under 

 Class 1 and 2 protection is less tlian that for Fed- 

 eral and other public ownersliips: 59 percent as 

 opposed to 83 percent and 76 percent, respectively. 

 Public and private owners, however, have about 

 the same acreage of land under Class 1 protection. 

 Table 123 and figure 74 show the comparative 

 acreages in Class 1 and the other categories by 

 ownerships. 



The North, with 29 percent of its land in Class 1, 

 leads the country in high-level protection, mainly 

 because of the excellent achievement on private 

 lands in the Middle Atlantic and Lake States 

 Regions, and on public lands in those regions and 

 New England (table 124). The greatest oppor- 

 tunity for improvement in tlie North is in the 

 Central States and Plains Regions. Only 6 per- 

 cent in the Central States and a negligible amount 

 in the Plains is under Class 1 protection. 



In the South, great opportunities exist to inten- 

 sify protection and thereby reduce losses on com- 

 mercial land. In this region only 1 percent of the 

 land received Class 1 protection in 1952. Sixty 

 percent had Class 2, 23 percent had Class 3, and 

 16 percent was unprotected. The South Atlantic 

 Region had tlie best record. 



The level of protection in the West was close to 

 the national average, with 15 percent of all land 

 getting Class 1 protection. The Northern and 

 Southern Rocky Mountain Regions had the best 

 protection in the West, although 10 percent of the 

 Southern Rockies still is unprotected. California 

 had 12 percent in Class 1 and 42 percent in Class 2. 

 Much of the remaining 46 percent, all in Class 3, 

 is extremely flammable brushland, highly im- 

 portant for watershed purposes, but with virtually 

 no timber values. 



In the Pacific Northwest, only 1 percent of the 

 forest area received Class 1 protection, but 96 

 percent had Class 2 coverage. This gives the 

 region one of the best overall classifications, al- 

 though the problem of meeting extreme emergen- 

 cies still exists on most of the area. 



Effective Fire Control Expenditures 

 Unchanged in Recent Years 



The $63 million expenditiu-e for the control of 

 forest fires in 1952 indicates the determination of 

 Federal, State, and private landowners and ma- 

 agers to get on top of the fire problem. However, 

 the steady increase in money spent for fire control 

 by all agencies has been considerably offset by 



