WESTERN WHITE PINE AND LARCH-FIR FORESTS 23 
loss in logs or in camps and other logging improvements in operations 
in Forest Service or State cuttings where the slash has been cur- 
rently piled and burned. 
In one well-known white pine operation in northern Idaho a series 
of bad fires from 1919 to 1924 destroyed nine logging camps and 
many other logging improvements. Much valuable white pine tim- 
ber and many cedar poles were burned, the cedar poles being a 
complete loss and the white pine not more than half salvaged. 
Altogether the direct loss in improvements, logs, standing timber, 
and fire-fighting costs has been not less than $1,250,000 to $1,500,000, 
in addition to a very considerable indirect loss in the disorganized 
operation and the forced salvage of large quantities of timber regard- 
less of market and labor conditions. ‘The total cut from this opera- 
tion has amounted to about 300,000,000 feet. At the rate of $1 a 
thousand feet, the slash resulting from this cut could have been 
piled and burned currently for $300,000. If piling and burning had 
been followed consistently from the beginning of the operation there 
is every reason to believe that there would have been no serious fire 
losses. The disastrous fires which have occurred developed their 
intense heat and impetus both in unburned slash and on areas pre- 
viously broadcast burned but very inflammable. 
No figures for the region as a whole show how much of the annual 
fire loss and costs would be prevented by a general plan of piling 
and burning; that is to say, how much is due to‘slash fires or fires 
occurring in broadcast-burned areas. Any operator, however, could 
figure it out roughly for his own operations. It seems probable that 
piling and burning in the white pine type would largely pay for 
itself in the long run, without taking into account its value in timber 
growing. This is particularly true where large and growing slash- 
ings are continually threatening with destruction extensive stands of 
valuable white pine near by. 
NECESSITY FOR COMPLETE DISPOSAL 
The question should be considered whether the cost of piling and 
burning all the slash might not be reduced by some modification of 
the method. In the yellow pine and larch-fir types it has been pro- 
posed, as a measure which will give a reasonable degree of protec- 
tion, to pile and burn only a portion of the slash along roads, rail- 
roads, chutes, and other lines of hazard, leaving the rest of the slash 
untouched, and to supplement this with an extra degree of patrol for 
a few years. 
The significant fact is, however, that the western white pine type 
attains probably the greatest degree of inflammability of any forest 
type in the United States. Protection measures which would be 
adequate in the other types will not serve the purpose here. Evi- 
dence is conclusive that to make sure of a reasonable degree of pro- 
tection all slash resulting from logging operations should be piled 
and burned as a minimum requirement. Further, to insure satis- 
factory results by this means piling should follow as shortly after 
skidding as possible, and burning of piled brush should be completed 
the first fall or spring after piling. 
