Region

FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 1937.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

FOREST SERVICE

STATEMENTS OF EARL W. LOVERIDGE, ASSISTANT CHIEF; HENRY WOLD, ASSISTANT CHIEF, DIVISION OF OPERATIONS; ROY HEADLEY, CHIEF, DIVISION OF FIRE CONTROL; AND W. A. JUMP, BUDGET OFFICER

FIGHTING FOREST FIRES

The CHAIRMAN. We have before us an estimate in House Document No. 124 of $2,045,000 as a deficiency for fighting forest fires.

It is customary to have deficiencies for this purpose; we never make an appropriation in advance because we cannot tell how much will be needed for this purpose.

Will you tell us how many forest fires there have been this year, how much damage has been done, and so forth?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. This year we have had one of the most serious and longest fires seasons we have ever had. We have had twice as many fires this year as the average for the past 5 years, in the country as a whole.

In that part of the country adjacent to the drought regions in our Central States we have had nine times as many as the average.

I have here a table which shows the regional fire quotas and the 1936 record to December 31, 1936. This will give you an indication of the severity of the season through which we have passed. (The statement above referred to is as follows:)

National forest fire record-regional fire quotas and 1936 record to Dec. 31, 1936

1936 to date

Dollars to date

(estimated)

1936

Mr. LOVERIDGE. You will notice in the first column of the table I have submitted that the average for the past 5 years is 8,341 fires. In the second column is given the number for the full year 1936, and that number is 16,530, or approximately twice as many as the average. Then you will notice in the first column that the average in region 9 (the Lake States region) for the past 5 years is 462, whereas last year we had 4,200 in that region.

The next column of figures gives the number of man-caused fires, so-called. Those were the fires caused by campers, lumbermen, brush burning, railroads, and so forth. You will notice that the number of these fires has increased in about the same ratio, from 4,967 to 11,341. This leaves 5,179 fires chargeable to lightning.

The percentage of the so-called class C fires, that is, fires which individually burned areas over 10 acres in size, has increased from 15 percent to 20 percent, and is a result of the big increase in fires in the Lake States and drought areas and recent acquisition of forest land in these areas.

The distinction there is in this, that although the percentage was high in the East, the average in the West which was 9 percent for the preceeding 5 years, was reduced during the past year, in 1936, to 6 percent. That is a fine record for the bad fire regions which are in the country west of the one hundredth meridian.

The CHAIRMAN. What was the average area of the class C fires, that is, the fires covering more than 10 acres in territory?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. The average area is about 130 acres, for each of the class C fires.

The CHAIRMAN. How many fires were there?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. About 3,300 of the class C fires. Most of the area burned over in 1936, amounting to 442,538 acres, was burned by the class C fires. That is why we try to eliminate the class C fires.

The CHAIRMAN. You try to eliminate them all, do you not?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That is our objective, to hold them all below the class C size.

The next column gives figures that are another gage of the effectiveness of this service. This is an informal sheet that we use among our own personnel to spur them to greater effort. That covers the number of extra period fires.

Extra period fires are those fires which are not controlled before noon of the first day after they are discovered. If we can catch the fires before noon we normally can check them. So we set that up as a further objective.

You will note that the number of extra period fires has increased from an average of 245 a year for the past 5 years to 353 in 1936, which is not as high a ratio as the increase in the total number of fires. The total number of fires increased 100 percent, and the number of extra period fires increased only 44 percent. In other words, the force was working quite effectively this past season.

In the next series of columns in the table the quota we set up, one-tenth of 1 percent, is the figure we set up so the men will have something to shoot at. We would like to get the whole area down to 200,000 acres per year, and then we are at the point of diminishing returns as regarding damage and costs.

The average for the past 5 years, you will note, was 388,269 acres, whereas in 1936 there were 442,538 acres burned over, with an esti

mated damage and that does not include intangible values-of $816,802. That is primarily timber values.

Mr. LUDLOW. What is the explanation of these abnormal increases

in fires?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That was primarily because of the drought period. Mr. LUDLOW. There was no other ascertainable cause?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That is the major cause.

The CHAIRMAN. What percentage of the fires are you now able to put out before they get out of control, as compared with 8 or 10 years ago?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. If I may, I would like to mention one example, rather than give a grand total.

In California, which is one of our most serious fire regions, the percentage of class C fires used to run around 22 percent, and we are now holding that down, as you see, to 9.4 percent.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that owing to the quick accessibility of the various parts of the country?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes; and to the construction of truck trails authorized by this committee, and the increased number of guards we have been able to put on, and also it is due to the increased effective training given our men.

The CHAIRMAN. And the young men in the C. C. C. camps have been assisting you in fighting the fires?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. The C. C. C. camps have been a godsend to us. You will recall that in 1932, or following 1932, it was necessary to make a reduction in our appropriation, and not until 1936 did we get back to the 1932 basis. In the meantime we had purchased 15,000,000 acres of land which had to be put under protection.

In 1936 we had the same amount of money as in 1932, but with 15,000,000 additional acres to take care of. Having the C. C. C. made it possible for us to stay on top of the game.

Mr. CANNON. It has been said that the men in the C. C. C. camps have been used to establish new trails and thus make otherwise inaccessible regions, accessible to visitors who have started fires which otherwise would not have been started.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. What is your question?

Mr. CANNON. The men in the C. C. C. camps have been used to construct trails which enabled tourists to get into portions of the forest which would otherwise be inaccessible, and they have brought with them, as they always have, visitors who always cause more or less fires. It has been said that they have caused fires as a result of the building of those trails which fires would otherwise not have been caused. Is that true?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That is true. It has been a matter of determining which was of the greater value, having the roads and trails and the resources which they made accessible or the damage due to having a greater number of tourists there. It has opened up the country for mining and brought in miners.

However, where the hazard does become extremely severe, the Secretary of Agriculture has authority to close these roads, and we do that.

Mr. TABER. Will you tell me where the regions are?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Region 1 covers Montana and northern Idaho, Region 2 is Colorado and eastern Wyoming. Region 3 covers Arizona

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and New Mexico. Region 4 includes Utah, western Wyoming, southern Idaho, and Nevada.

Region 5 covers California. Region 6 includes Oregon and Washington. Region 10 includes Alaska. That is the Western group.

Then we have region 7, in the Northeastern States, from Virginia, north and east of the Alleghenies. Region 8 includes the Southern States, from southern Virginia over to and including Texas. Region 9 includes the Central States, including the Lake States. Mr. CANNON. This money has already been spent?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. And you are just going to get back what you took

out?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. It has all been spent except an amount which will be needed prior to the next fiscal year, $183,750.

Mr. CANNON. You have spent nearly 2 million dollars this year? Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. I remember that some years back sometimes the amount for this item was as small as $100,000. That was due to the fact that we had excessive rains, and perhaps the conditions were not favorable for fires.

Mr. JUMP. That is the amount which was included in the annual appropriation act to keep the item in the bill.

Mr. CANNON. Going back for the last 10 years, the amount has been very small.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Would you like me to give you the figures for those years?

Mr. CANNON. Yes.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. These figures are for fiscal years. Beginning in 1926 the amount was $910,000.

Mr. CANNON. About half of what it is this year.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes, sir. In 1927 it was $2,300,000; in 1928 it was $950,000. Those were the wet years. I wish we had them back again.

In 1928 the amount was $1,149,000; in 1930 the amount was $3,109,000; in 1931 the amount was $1,500,000; in 1932 the amount was $4,100,000; in 1933 the amount was $965,000, and in 1934 the amount was $417,000.

Mr. CANNON. It seems $417,000 was the minimum. I see you ran up to as much as $4,000,000.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes, sir.

Mr. CANNON. Under normal circumstances, if you had normal weather, do you think you have increased the effieicney of the force to the point where the number of men required for this item would be less from year to year, weather conditions being equal?

Mr. LOVERAGE. If we get back to normal wet weather conditions and if the temperatures are lower, the probability is that the fire fighting deficiency item will drop.

Mr. JUMP. There are two things we ought to take into account so that if the item is not decreased to the extent that we would like, we will not be disappointed.

We will have to take into consideration the tremendous increase in the number of people going into the forests for recreational purposes; with the public use of the forests the risk of fires being started is greatly enlarged.

Then there is the additional land put under protection as a result of new land acquisition. These two factors are bound to have an effect on the amount of the appropriation for fire suppression.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That statement was made, having in mind that we are now getting about 1,000,000 man-days from the C. C. C. boys on fire control. If that organization goes out of the picture, it will make quite a difference.

Mr. TABER. Is that activity helping or hurting?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. It is helping very much, sir.

Mr. TABER. Why is it that the tremendous increases in a lot of. these things come in the territory where the number of C. C. C. boys is the largest?

Mr. LOVERIDGE. That is the same territory where we have acquired most of our additional 15,000,000 acres that I mentioned a while ago. We have not received a corresponding increase in our regular appropriation.

Mr. TABER. What is the normal gross of the dollar damage? You state here in this table that for 1936 it was $816,802.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. It has been as high as $4,000,000 in a year. It' parallels the amount spent for fire fighting fairly closely.

Mr. TABER. Here it is about 40 percent.

Mr. LOVERIDGE. As the amount spent for fire fighting increases the damage ordinarily increases about the same. I make that as an offhand statement.

It runs from the figure we have here, $816,802, up to $4,000,000 a year, and those are only tangible values, including the timber burned, and things of that sort. We have no way of estimating the damage done to game life, watersheds, health, and so forth.

Mr. TABER. This is just the timber damage on national forests? Mr. LOVERIDGE. Within the national forests. It includes timber and similar tangible values only.

Mr. TABER. There are no private lands within this territory at all? Mr. LOVERIDGE. These fire damage figures are for national forest land.

Mr. TABER. But the expenditures are not confined strictly to that? Mr. LOVERIDGE. No, sir; if there is a homestead in the national forest and if a fire starts there we have to put the fire out in order to protect the national forest lands.

Mr. LUDLOW. What is the total personnel engaged in fire fighting? Mr. LOVERIDGE. We have some 5,000 lookouts and other people, including smoke chasers and patrolmen. They are all short-term men. The average length of their service is about 4 months. They run from 22 months to 6 months, depending on the part of the country in which they are working.

Mr. LUDLOW. What other personnel have you?

There are

Mr. LOVERIDGE. We have our forest rangers, of course. some 700 forest rangers and 147 forest supervisors. Then everybody, including our timber salesmen, our lumbermen, our scalers, our range men and everybody else is called into action when a fire occurs. That carries the highest priority.

Mr. LUDLOW. Has the total number of your force been increasing? Mr. LOVERIDGE. Yes. We have been receiving increased funds for additional fire guards for fire fighting. The number of rangers and supervisors has not been increased materially within the last 10 years.