BUILDING A FIRE ORGANIZATION

EARL S. PEIRCE, CARL A. GUSTAFSON.

Early discovery of a fire whether in forest or city and speed and strength in attacking it are the cornerstones on which a fire-control organization is built. The structure of the organization itself begins with the fire fighters, but involves much more than that. It includes facilities for detecting and reporting fires, transportation, fire-fighting equipment, the supervisory personnel, and well-trained forces for the initial attack. Comprehensive preliminary plans are needed; so are means for carrying them out.

Because about one-third of the total area of the continental United States is forest land, which requires organized protection against fire and which varies widely in most of the many elements related to forest fires and their control, three prerequisites are necessary to develop a forest-fire organization for any particular area : To know the local fire problem, to determine the major objectives that the efforts for protection should reach, and to define the measures needed to attain the desired goal.

Of approximately 653 million acres of forest lands in the 48 States that need some protection against wildfires, about two-thirds belongs to private owners. The other third is publicly owned. All the public land and three-fourths of the private areas are under some degree of fire control, but 107 million acres of private forest lands are still without organized protection.

In 1947, of 80,370 fires on protected lands, 8,928 occurred on Federal property and 71,442 on areas belonging to States and private owners. Fires burned 318,074 acres, or 0.15 percent, of the area protected on Federal lands, and 2,814,381 acres, or 0.86 percent, on State and private lands. The tangible losses were estimated at $2,972,786 and $21,378,477, respectively.

We have no reliable comparable figures for the lands without organized protection, but we estimate that about 15 percent of those tracts burn over each year.

In classifying forest fires by causes, eight categories are generally used : Lightning, railroads, campers, smokers, debris burners, incendiarists, lumbering, and miscellaneous.

Lightning, incendiarists, and smokers, in that order, are responsible for most fires on Federal lands. On State and private holdings, the relative major causes are different, being incendiarists, smokers, and debris burners. Lightning is a major problem on the more mountainous national forests, but it is not so important a factor in private fire-control management except in a few localities.

Complete exclusion of forest fires is rarely attainable. The degree of protection that is necessary depends on the purposes of management and the damage that fires may be expected to cause in a given area. A theoretical guide is that it is desirable to keep the total annual cost for all fire-control measures plus annual fire losses to a minimum figure. In other words, the economic objective is to secure adequate protection at least cost. The problem is the same for State, county, municipal, and Federal agencies, and the index of justifiable protection the goal of "least cost plus damage" might also apply to private protection agencies even though they are answerable to a board of directors rather than to the public.

EFFECTIVE FIRE CONTROL requires a careful analysis of all important factors related to the fire problem and the preparation of specific action plans for each major part of the protection job.

The completed plans in combination are termed "presuppression plans." Their primary objective is a fire-control organization that is capable and well-trained, adequately equipped, and properly supervised one that will reduce the number of man-caused fires and can handle the worst fire situation that is likely to arise.

The elements in the planning are :

1. The major causes of fires and the measures needed to prevent or reduce those that are man-caused.

2. Occurrence of fires past occurrence and location, segregated by major causes, seasonal periods, and times of day.

3. Fuels kinds, density, and their relative inflammability and resistance to control measures.

4. Topography whether flat, rolling, or rough; steepness of slopes; and other features affecting fire behavior.

5. Accessibility relative difficulty in reaching a fire with suppression forces and the additional facilities needed with transportation available.

6. Visibility distance in miles a fire observer may normally be expected to see an incipient fire. For example, in the usually clear atmosphere of the West, a small fire 15 miles away can be readily detected, but in the Coastal Plains of the Southeast the visibility distance is about 6 miles.

7. Meteorological factors: the wind, temperature, relative humidity, dryness of fuels, precipitation, thunderstorm activity, length of fire seasons, and the like.

8. Production in fire-control measures per unit of manpower or machine.

Besides these basic factual surveys, consideration needs to be given to other features more closely related to the operational phases of the protection plan. These we shall mention later.

The significance and effects of all pertinent factors must be correlated and definite conclusions must be reached and reflected in a "master" presuppression plan. The master plan is really not a single document; it is a term applied to the coordinated preparation and use of a number or series of specific plans that cover each major phase of action.

Different methods have been developed and used to prepare presuppression plans, but nearly all have the same objectives and fundamental factors. A good way to depict a plan of the usual type is to assume that we have the task of preparing one for an area of several million acres a typical tract that consists of wild, remote, rugged forest lands on which fires have been bad and losses high.

THE BEST POINT AT WHICH TO BEGIN is with the precept that the best fire control is to prevent fires from starting. Nine of every ten forest fires in the United States result from man's carelessness in his use of fire ; all of them can be prevented. Our major objectives, then, are:

1. To prevent or reduce man-caused fires.

2. To lessen the probability that fires will start or spread by eliminating or reducing the amount of inflammable material the brush and grass, logging slash, and other fuels that at times become highly inflammable.

To reach these objectives, the plan must be based on a thorough analysis of the principal reasons why fires occur on the area and how the fires can be prevented or reduced. The analysis should include:

1. Study of risk.

Analyze fires by causes for the preceding 5 years. To the extent possible, the reason why each fire started should be determined.

Map the location of fires, by major causes, for the same 5-year period. This is to earmark the areas of high fire occurrence or "risk."

Classify the high-risk areas and determine the fire-starting potential of each area.

2. Study of special hazards.

Delineate dangerous areas from the standpoint of potential fuels, or hazard, such as slash, the highly inflammable brush, debris along railroads and highways and around sawmills, and so forth.

3. Correlation of the risk and hazard factors, with a relative composite rating for each problem area.

4. Determination of remedial prevention measures needed.

A general principle to be considered in preparing a fire-prevention action plan is to recognize that forest fuels and fire risks are the two controlling indices. Where critical fuels are exposed to human risks, the prevention effort must be aimed at reducing either the fire risk or the fuel hazard, or at minimizing the potentials of each. Often it is possible to eliminate or reduce abnormal fire hazards, but where that is not feasible the main effort must be directed toward lowering their exposure to unnecessary risks.

Many devices and methods have been used to reduce human risk from high-hazard fire areas at critical times. They fall into two general categories, education and restriction. The educational efforts, a wide range of activities, try to change the attitudes and careless habits of individuals and the general public. Country-wide fire-prevention programs are helpful, but the over-all educational campaigns need to be supplemented by particularized efforts that are aimed directly at the specific local needs. Personal contacts often are the most effective.

Few prevention plans can, however, depend on education alone. High-hazard fuel areas may require the restricted use of the area by people forbidding smoking except at specified safe places, for example, or limiting the campfires, or fixing the hours and places for burning debris. Some hazardous areas might even have to be closed entirely to all use during critical periods.

The fire-prevention plan must meet the specific needs. It must be workable. It must be kept up to date. It must outline a definite course of action as to what is to be done and by whom, where and how it will be accomplished, and the period during which it will be carried out. An effective program also requires qualified and trained personnel. Respected local residents are frequently the best.

TO DETECT FOREST FIRES, vigilance must be eternal. Time is of the essence. Adequate facilities and personnel are required to assure that all fires are discovered when they start. That generally demands a network of lookout points, manned by competent observers or detectors during the fire season. Patrolling by foot, car, or airplane also is sometimes necessary.

The first step in preparing a detection plan is to designate on a map all fires in the previous 5 years, grouped by major causes and zones as to frequency. This is known as the fire-occurrence business map, and it represents the number of fires that experience has shown must, on an average, be detected in a 5-year period. Fire occurrence is usually indicated by a number of broad classes representing the anticipated number of fires per unit of area. In this way the entire tract to be protected is segregated into zones of relative fire risk.

A survey is then made to select the best observation points. The original selection usually includes at least twice the number of lookouts needed and finally chosen. From each potential lookout point a map is made that shows the territory within which a small fire could be readily seen from that location. A profile tracing is made of each of these "seen area maps." By comparing and superimposing these tracings over the fire-occurrence business map, one can determine the relative value of each lookout point. All potential points can be given a comparative rating. Selection of the approved lookouts can then proceed in a businesslike manner and towers or observatories be constructed in priority order.