TIMBER GROWING AND LOGGING PRACTICE 23 
Cooperation between the State and the Federal Government in 
forest-fire prevention and suppression is generally authorized. 
PRIVATE RESPONSIBILITY 
The active interest of the State in the prevention and suppression 
of forest fires where such fires constitute a real problem should not 
relieve the timber operator of the responsibility of protecting his 
own property, the adjoining property owner, and the public in gen- 
eral against the special hazards which his operations create and leave 
behind. This has reference in particular to the slash or tops, culled 
logs, bark, and chips left in the woods following timber operations. 
These create in places a state of inflammability, in effect a nuisance, 
which the public has a right to expect the operator to care for. 
When weather conditions are favorable to its spread, fire in cut-over 
land covered thickly with the dead tops of trees is almost impossible 
to combat successfully. At such times the slash burns with so great 
a heat that conflagrations are started far in advance of the head of 
the fire, and men can not combat it as successfully as they can the 
ordinary leaf and grass fire that creeps through the woods. They 
can not approach the head of the fire closely and are usually obliged 
to let it burn through the slashing or to back fire. Either course 
means much land burned over and often the destruction of many 
young trees a few inches to a few feet high. 
In any logging operation where the timber is cut heavily and not 
utilized to a size of 4 or 5 inches in the tops, a great deal of slash 
ordinarily results. From the standpoint of reducing to the minimum 
the extent and severity of forest fires, it is desirable to dispose of 
this. The danger of severe fires in cut-over lands can be most nearly 
obviated if the slash is lopped clown to sticks 2 or 3 inches in diameter, 
piled, and burned when it is safe to burn. The piles should be 4 or 5 
feet high and 6 to 8 feet across, kept well apart and 10 or 15 feet 
distant from living trees. With wages at $2 a day, it costs 50 or 
75 cents per thousand board feet of timber cut to take care of pine 
slash in this manner and 65 cents to $1.40 to take care of hardwood 
slash. The lower costs are possible if the slash is piled and burned 
as logging progresses; the higher costs are entailed where the tree 
tops are permitted to become dry and hard before being lopped and 
piled. 
Hardwood slashings will as a rule be nearly as safe if the branches 
down to those 2 or 3 inches in diameter are lopped from the tops and 
scattered over the ground. This will save at least the cost of burn- 
ing, 15 or 20 cents a thousand. The fire danger is not everywhere so 
acute as to make slash disposal necessary over the entire areas logged, 
but it does seem essential on particular areas where both the inflam- 
mability hazard and risk are high to dispose of the slash by the 
methods discussed or else to provide special intensive patrol there. 
Pine slashings are more inflammable than hardwood slashings and 
do not rot so quickly. Hardwood slash left from a summer cutting 
is more dangerous than slash left in winter, because the former holds 
the dried leaves on the twigs. Cut-over south slopes become drier 
than north slopes and consequently are more likely to burn. 
The risk is great where travel is heavy, as along main highways 
and much-used back roads and trails. It is great along railroad 
