696 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXX, No. 8 
COST OF PRIMARY FIRE PROTECTION 
Against the sum of loss plus sup¬ 
pression ~eost or total liability, we 
must balance protection cost—what 
for-the sake of convenience has been 
termed primary protection, to dis¬ 
tinguish it from the cost of fire sup¬ 
pression. This is the known quan¬ 
tity—the amount that is figured in 
advance when a definite organization 
is developed to prevent, detect, and 
control fires. There is a certain over¬ 
lapping here, unless we leave out of 
consideration in the suppression cost 
the services rendered by the primary 
protection organization already pro¬ 
vided for in advance. It was not 
practicable to make this separation in 
the present study; hence the sup¬ 
pression costs as determined, and given 
in the accompanying tables, include 
some of the cost of the primary pro¬ 
tection organization. The more in¬ 
tensive the organization, the greater 
will be the proportion of fires handled 
by it without calling on outside help; 
consequently the real saving in lia¬ 
bility with decrease in hour-control 
will tend to be somewhat greater than 
the differences between suppression 
costs indicate. The cost of primary 
protection will be determined by the 
length of the period during which it is 
in effect, which depends upon the 
length of danger season, by the number 
of men, and amount of equipment used 
for the purpose, and by salary rates 
and costs of maintaining equipment. 
BASIS FOB, STUDY 
The problem of developing a method 
for rating hazard and liability requires 
study of the relations between the 
various combinations of factors that 
may be found in different units, and 
of the results in losses plus suppression 
costs. The only scientific basis for 
such a study is what has actually hap¬ 
pened, that is, the actual fire history 
of the different forest areas. For this 
purpose, the present study made use 
of the available records of individual 
fires that occurred on the national 
forests during the period 1911-1915 
(summarized in Table I). Records 
previous to 1911 are too incomplete 
or inaccurate to be useful, and those 
for years after 1915 were not avail¬ 
able at the time the study was under¬ 
taken. Records for some national 
forests for some of the years between 
1911 and 1915 are missing. The 
records for subsequent years should 
be studied in addition to those already 
used, to follow up the methods for 
rating hazard and liability outlined 
in the following pages. Figures based 
on 10 or more years should be much 
more reliable than those based on only 
5 years, not only because the longer 
period gives a much better average 
than does the shorter (and it is known 
that climatic conditions were more 
dangerous and fires more numerous 
and destructive during the 5 years 
following 1915), but also because the 
later records are more complete and 
accurate than the earlier ones. Only 
fires that burned on national forest 
land were used, because the records of 
others are less complete and, for sev¬ 
eral reasons, not comparable. More¬ 
over, without data regarding the areas 
of different forest types on private 
lands both within and outside the 
forest, it would be impossible to relate 
either numbers of fires or areas burned 
over to the- total acreage exposed to 
fire danger. (See Tables II and III.) 
The records do not give detailed in¬ 
formation regarding most of the factors 
whose effect it is desired to study, and 
even if such data were available, it 
seems probable that to consider them 
all separately would so complicate the 
problem that it could not be solved. 
Even if methods for rating could be 
worked out, to apply them would re¬ 
quire us to rate nearly every individual 
Table I .—Fires on national forest land 
( 1911-1915) used as a basis for study 
Region 
Fires due to general 
risk 
Fires due to special 
risk 
Number of 
fires 
Area burned 
Average area 
per fire 
Number of 
fires 
Area burned 
Average area 
per fire 
Acres 
Acres 
Acres 
Acres 
1_ 
56 
4,474 
79.9 
103 
215 
2.1 
2_ 
382 
32,858 
86.0 
236 
350 
1.5 
3_ 
904 
26,008 
28.8 
155 
309 
2.0 
4_ 
326 
27,992 
85.9 
6 
95 
15.8 
5_ 
82 
15,431 
188.2 
20 
680 
34.0 
6 _ 
1,984 
77,823 
39.2 
17 
39 
2.3 
7.. 
723 
33,246 
46.0 
20 
79 
4.0 
8_ 
714 
83,306 
116.7 
16 
595 
37.2 
9_ 
170 
9,199 
54.1 
27 
46, 
1.7 
10_ 
218 
18,063 
82.9 
3 
3 
1.0 
11_ 
406 
20,703 
51.0 
103 
2,2341 
21.7 
12__ 
108 
359 
3.3 
80 
418 
5.2 
13.. 
120 
1,748 
14.6 
101 
1,385 
13.7 
14_ 
53 
2,832 
53.4 
1 
15 
15.0 
15. . 
117 
15,415 
131.8 
! 
16_ 
1,093 
56, 515 
51.7 
155 
3,418 
34.2 
17.... 
605 
148,141 
244.9 
38 
2,582 
68.0 
18_ 
1,308 121,913 
93.2 
154 
1,435 
9.3 
19_ 
250 
4,637 
18.5 
113 
2,200 ( 
19.5 
20 .. 
187 
22,224 
118.8 
21_ 
121 
25,674 
212.2 
181 
5,638 
31.1 
Totals. 
9,927j 748, 561 
75.4 
1,474 
21, 736 
14.7 
