Forestry Notes 



221 



sary forest destruction. In good hands it can be one of the most effective of 

 agents for perpetuating forests by proper use." Happily, and as was expected, 

 the influence of this association has proved to be in the right direction. In 

 1920 it has been one of the most helpful factors in the work of the California 

 Forestry Committee. It has gone on record in favor of a comprehensive slash- 

 disposal law for California, and has indorsed the Graves-Greeley national pro- 

 gram for forest legislation, described by Mr. Bruce in this issue. Because of 

 the rapid increase in the number of forest fires immediately after the opening 

 of the deer season, the association is endeavoring to bring about the postpone- 

 ment of the opening date for at least thirty days. 



Shortage of fuel oil may mean more forest fires in California in 1921. In 

 recent years the Forest Service has required the use of oil as fuel in all logging 

 engines operating in national forest timber. Because of the shortage in oil sup- 

 plies, it now appears improbable that this requirement can be continued. Many 

 operators may have to go back to coal or wood, probably the latter, and wood 

 fires in engines are notorious starters of woods fires outside, despite the best 

 spark-arresters yet devised. 



Jules Verne once more outdone ! The exclamation is trite ; the facts are not. 

 Starting on June I, 1919, as the first organized and sustained airplane forest 

 fire patrol in the United States, and probably the first anywhere in the world, 

 the airplane has taken on additional forest duties in 1920. This season the 

 man-in-the-air has directed the crews at work on big fires, released men to 

 fight on other fronts by patrolling completed fire lines which needed watching 

 to see that the fire did not jump the lines, and met the need for experienced 

 forest officers to lead the crews by moving them in a few hours from a portion 

 of the state then free from fire to strenuous battle-fronts in other localities. 

 In the Palm Canon fire on the Cleveland Forest the local force attacked at 

 once. But as soon as Supervisor Boulden arrived he took a ship over the fire, 

 mapped out an entirely different campaign, and discharged most of the men. 

 On the 12,000-acre Mill Creek fire on the Lassen Forest a portable radio re- 

 ceiving set was taken to the fire line by pack-horses. Fighting operations were 

 then directed by radio from an airplane, and the same machine also patrolled 

 fourteen miles of completed fire line, calling men to that district only when 

 the line was in danger. In one storm, on August 4, 1920, lightning started 

 more than 230 forest fires on the national forests within eleven counties of 

 northern California. Many fire-fighters were quickly assembled, but the need 

 of trained captains was great. Just then the Stanislaus Forest was quiet. Two 

 trained Stanislaus men at once left Sonora for the landing-field at Coopers- 

 town, were taken by the air patrol to Red Bluff, and sent out in another ship 

 to lead the crews on a serious fire on the Lassen Forest. A few days later the 

 situation changed. There was a break on the Stanislaus, and the men were 

 back within the day. 



Nine daily airplane-patrol routes were operated in California during the 

 1920 fire season. Three operated from Red Bluff: one to Alturas and return, 

 covering the Lassen and Modoc forests and the eastern half of the Shasta; 

 one to Montague and return on the coast slope, over the Klamath and Trinity 

 forests and the western portion of the Shasta; the third patrolled the Cali- 



