North. We are not, however, entirely free from this loss, for though no fatality, due to this cause, was reported for the year 1909, one death, caused by a forest fire, did occur in 1908. This was in one of the western Piedmont counties, where the forests are practically all hardwood. Since these figures were compiled, news has been received of the sad death of a woman during the last days of March, 1910, in Cumberland County, who was killed while fighting a forest fire. Is it not time for the State and the people to get together and take some action toward checking this careless and wilful destruction of life and property? AMOUNT SPENT IN FIGHTING FIRES. By comparing the figures given under this heading in Table 1, it will be seen that only a small amount was estimated as spent for this purpose in the Piedmont region. It would appear that this is not entirely due to the smaller number of fires in this region, but partly to the method of estimating this cost. It is probable that most of the correspondents did. not include the time of the farmer taken in fighting fires on his own land, but only counted such labor as was paid in cash by lumber companies or other large owners for this work. The figures given under the Mountain and Coastal regions tend to confirm this impression. In these regions about six times as much was spent for fighting fire as in the Piedmont section, probably chiefly because all the large forest holdings of lumber companies and others are in these two opposite sections of the State. Many of these companies pay out each year considerable sums to protect their properties from fire. But to obtain the true cost of fighting fires, there should also be added the time of the farmer who owns the small tract and of his family and neighbors spent in extinguishing fires and often in watching them, on and off, for days after the fire is under control. This often has to be done during the busiest season, when a man's time is worth two or three times what an extra man could be hired for at another time of the year. If this were included, the total cost would a long way exceed the $13,564 given in the table. But the cost of fighting fire should also be looked at from another point of view. It really is in many cases money spent to protect the unburned woods from the fire, and this should be its object in many more cases. Too often protection only goes as far as keeping the fire from fences, barns, piles of lumber, etc., without attempting to keep it from burning through the woods, when really the few dollars worth of fence that might be destroyed would not compare with the damage done by allowing fire to burn through the timber and young growth. Viewed in this light, the eleven million acres of forest land in North Carolina cost a little over one-tenth of a cent per acre for protection in 1909. About 5 per cent of these forests were burned over, with a total loss of $245,000, or about 62 cents per acre burnt, or over 3 cents per acre for the total forest area of the State. If more had been spent in fighting fires, there is no doubt that the total loss would have been very much less. LOSS FROM FIRES THAT IS NOT COVERED BY QUESTIONS. So far only direct losses have been considered, such losses as could be readily assessed by any average jury almost as soon as the fire was over. There is, however, another class of damages, none the less serious because they show themselves gradually, and can, as a rule, only be fully estimated by an expert familiar with the growth and habits of trees in the forest. These damages, though not at once apparent, are readily seen by any woodsman when pointed out to him. TIMBER INJURED AND REDUCED IN VALUE. In the great majority of instances, where fire burns through woods containing merchantable timber, comparatively little of this is killed or destroyed outright. For this reason it is frequently claimed that surface fires do not injure the merchantable trees. But every fire leaves its mark on these trees. A bunch of leaves gathering on the upper side of a tree, or a log or limb falling beside one, makes a dangerous point of attack, where the fire will be hotter than the delicate inner bark can stand. Wounds made by such burns form points of attack for insects and disease germs, where they may enter and gradually spread, often through the whole tree. Some species are much more easily injured by fire than others. It has been estimated that 75 per cent of the standing. chestnut in the mountains of this State is unfitted for a good grade of lumber by worms and rot, and this diseased condition of the chestnut has been largely brought about by fires. With an estimated stand of something like three billion feet of chestnut in the mountain counties of the State, 75 per cent of which is reduced $1 per thousand in value, which is a very moderate estimate, a total loss of $2,250,000 has resulted to forest owners through injury to this one species alone. It may be contended that this damage has been accumulating for a long time, but should it be spread out over the last one hundred years, which is certainly much longer than is necessary to get this result, we get an annual damage to chestnut alone of $22,500, which is practically half of the total value of timber destroyed outright by fire in that region in 1909. If the injury to the other timber, oak, poplar, hemlock, hickory, etc., which constitutes two-thirds of the stand in that region, be counted, it is. |