ROLE OF FIRE IN CALIFORNIA PINE FORESTS 47 
Advance reproduction, as well as brush and litter, they regarded 
simply as additional fuel. Because the only concern was for the 
merchantable timber, no value was attached to the destruction 
of small trees or reproduction. 
Thus the practice of forest burning, originally employed by graziers, 
miners, and others who had no particular concern with the forest as 
such, was accepted and employed by timber owners who had every 
possible interest in the passoniestcn of the existing forest. 
The establishment of the national forests in California, beginning 
as early as 1891, thus found forest burning an established practice. 
The idea that fires could be excluded entirely from millions of acres 
was generally regarded as preposterous and the most gloomy pictures 
were drawn of any such attempt. It was claimed that the uncon- 
trollable crown fire was to be expected as the inevitable consequence 
of allowing ground cover and litter to accumulate. Thus, in the early 
years of protection of the national forests, the forests were still open 
as a result of the repeated fires of the past. The great out- 
break of incendiarism and agitation for light burning did not come 
until later. As fire protection became an accomplished fact and the 
young growth began to fill up the open forest, the amount of inflam- 
mable material in the forests increased greatly. Thereupon renewed 
efforts were made to return to the unrestricted use of fire. The in- 
cendiary who desired an open forest and had no concern for the forest 
itself, and the light burner who honestly desired to protect the mer- 
chantable timber with fire, now became two of the most serious obsta- 
cles to successful protection, not only because of their direct action, 
but even more so because of their open preaching of fire. No at- 
tempts to suppress the activities of the one or to convert the other 
could, however, well be successful without facts of fire injury at hand, 
and these for many years were not available. 
RESULTS OF LIGHT BURNING 
There has been much discussion of the relative merits of light burn- 
ing and fire exclusion as methods of protection. The issue had to be 
met in national forest administration, and it was met by a careful 
study of the value of light burning for reducing hazards, the direct 
money cost in its application, and the indirect damage costs. In 
considering the use of fire for reducing special hazards, answers were 
sought to three principal questions: (1) Were the objects sought 
accomplished; (2), what were the costs, direct and indirect; (3) how 
do the benefits and costs balance? The results of these studies are 
worth examining in detail. 
WITH MAXIMUM PROTECTION—LASSEN COUNTY 
The first extensive, deliberate light burning of recent years (24) 
was carried out in the western yellow pine and western yellow pine- 
white fir forests of Lassen County in the fall of 1910. The operator 
who carried out this project recognized clearly that even light fires 
damage merchantable timber and therefore took elaborate precautions 
to prevent the fire from even reaching the trees he was attempting 
to protect. The litter and twigs were raked from around the indi- 
