“TIMBER GROWING IN DOUGLAS FIR REGION 17 
these processes may be bettered in the ways outlined below. Ex- 
pressed in their simplest form, the requirements essential, during 
logging, to keeping forest land productive are: 
(1) Direct protection. Have an effective protective organization 
with proper equipment, personnel, etc., so that there may be no 
accidental fires in the operation or on the cut-over lands. 
(2) ‘‘Fireproofing”’ cut-over lands. Reduce the inflammability of 
eut-over areas to a minimum by close utilization, by falling snags, 
by making sure of thorough slash burns, and by keeping slash fires 
out of pole wood which they might kill. 
(3) Prompt and careful slash burning. If the slash must be 
burned as a precaution against fire, burn it as soon after the felling 
oi the timber as practicable, and give to this operation foresight, 
intelligence, and care. 
(4) Seed supply. Leave standing for seed occasional living trees 
which do not have a saw-log value sufficient to justify their logging 
or which may be left without undue expense or inconvenience to the 
operator. Otherwise, so plan the operation that each block of 
freshly cut-over land, after it has been slash burned, may have a 
chance to receive wind-blown seed from adjoining standing timber. 
To carry out these measures, certain phases of the average logging 
camp’s administration must be modified or strengthened. Of the 
requirements listed below every one is now in effect in one camp or 
another, but probably no operation practices all of them simul- 
taneously. Some of the most successful operators, however, come 
very near to complying with all. The measures are all considered 
essential throughout the Douglas fir region except as their appli- 
cation is specifically qualified. 
DIRECT PROTECTION 
An effective organization and equipment for direct protection of 
cut-over land and land being cut over is perhaps the most important 
requisite to forest perpetuation in this region. Below are listed, 
without any attempt to elaborate them, the principal features of an 
ideal yet practicable protective system. This direct protection, 
naturally to be financed by the operator, should cover not only the 
areas of felled timber and unburned slash, but also logged land which 
is exposed to fire by the operation. 
It must be remembered, however, that the physical details of the 
organization are less important than the spirit which actuates it. 
The perfunctory carrying out of a set of laws and rules will accom- 
plish little. First and foremost the organization for protection 
against fire must be imbued by an enthusiasm and zeal absolutely to 
prevent and suppress fires. Everyone in the organization must be 
made to realize that fires about a logging operation are dangerous 
and that it does not pay to take chances with them; that even when 
conditions seem safe an untended fire or a small fire in a dangerous 
place may, with a change in the weather, develop at short notice 
into a conflagration. The fire system should be inspected by the 
superintendent, manager, and owners as vigorously as any other 
phase of the enterprise. 
The following requirements are naturally limited to the “fire 
season,”’ but no attempt is made to define the season, for it varies 
42641°—27——3 
