Treesearch

The purpose of predicting dangerous forest-fire conditions, of course, is to reduce the great cost and damage caused by forest fires. In the region of Montana and northern Idaho alone the average cost to the United States Forest Service of fire protection and suppression is over $1,000,000 a year. Although the causes of forest fires will gradually be reduced by education and law enforcement, there always will be forest fires started by lightning and other causes when conditions in the forest are dangerous. If the dangerous fire conditions, however, can be predicted a few days in advance,...

The present report is a result of the study of the relation between climate and forest fires in Montana and northern Idaho. This region is designated as District I of the United States Forest Service. The data used are the weather records of the United States Weather Bureau for the regular and cooperative stations, and the detail fire reports of the United States Forest Service for the years 1909 to 1919, inclusive. Mr. C. C. Delavan has compiled the fire records and Mr. J. A. Larsen the weather data.

Records which furnish information regarding weather conditions on mountains have alwavs been of interest to the public and to scientists. To the United States Forest Service these are of great use in constructing the ground work for better forest fire protection. Students of climate, botany, ecology, and animal life are always eager for such data.

It is a common experience in passing through stands of coniferous seedlings ten to thirty feet tall to notice the rapidly growing leaders of the dominant trees. A casual glance will show a surprising variation in the rate of height growth of the same tree in different years. The obvious explanation that occurs to one is that this variation is clue to a corresponding variation in the weather in the different years.

In connection with the sowing of Yellow pine, White pine and Western larch on The Blackfeet National Forest during the sea sons of 1911 and 1912, seventeen and one-half acres were sowed directly in seed spots.

The object of the study, the results of which are presented here, was to determine the influence of the forest cover upon climate locally in the Southwest, in so far as this influence might be of importance in the management of timberlands and the possible afforestation of parks and denuded areas. Since the bearing upon forestry rather than upon meteorology is the primary consideration, comparatively little attention is given to purely meteorological problems. The study, moreover, makes no pretense of investigating the influence of the forest upon the general climate of the region. A study...

As early as 1906 the need for a systematic study of cut-over areas on the National Forests was keenly felt. It was impossible to predict to any degree of accuracy the net increment of the trees left after cutting, the height and diameter growth of individual trees, the death rate of some of the older trees nor was it possible to foretell the actual effect on reproduction and on the remaining stand of the different methods of marking, brush disposal, or grazing. Preliminary instructions were drawn up by the writer in co-operation with Mr. G. A. Pearson in 1909. These early instructions have...

Western yellow pine is to the Southwest what white pine is to the Northeast, or longleaf pine to the Southeast. The commercial forests of Arizona and New Mexico are three-fourths western yellow pine, which furnishes by far the greater part of the lumber used locally as well as that shipped to outside markets. To describe the characteristics of the species and to explain the methods of management applied to it on the National Forests of the Southwest, in the hope that they may be applied as well, wherever possible, by private owners, is the chief purpose of this bulletin. It should serve...

The largest pine forest on the North American Continent extends from north-central Arizona in a southeasterly direction into southwestern New Mexico, a distance of approximately 250 miles The forest occupies an extensive plateau, known as the Colorado Plateau, which has a general elevation of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level, with numerous peaks the highest of which reaches an altitude of about 13,000 feet. Western yellow pine occupies the level mesas and lower slopes of the plateau from approximately 6,500 to 8,500 feet elevation, forming a belt 10 to 30 miles in width.

The large treeless openings or "parks" in the western yellow pine forests of the southwest, which form a well known characteristic, afford an excellent opportunity for a comparative study of the effect of a forest canopy upon local snow conditions. During the late winter and spring of 1909, the writer had an exceptionally favorable opportunity for observing the progress of snowfall and subsequent melting in a virgin stand of western yellow pine near the base of the San Francisco peaks on the Coconino National Forest in northern Arizona.