Evening star., 1951-12-09
Vital Forest Region
In Northwest Manned
By Only gil Persons
By the Associated Press


Rivers-So important to America s
defense program for food and
power-comes from tiny streams
born in Region l of the National
Forest Service.
These two mighty rivers drain
$4,000 square miles of United
States land, their basins contain
one-fourth of the nations land,
their acres produce 20 per cent
of the country's crops and live
stock.
GIL Persons Responsible.
Yet the responsibility of taking
care of Region l is borne by a
small band of Gil persons.
And the net cost to taxpayers is
just a little over SO million a Il
year.
At the head is Regional For
ester P. D. Hanson. He is in
charge of II national forests COW
ering 24.676.448 acres spread over
Montana. Northern Idaho, North
eastern Washington and North
western South Dakota.
His domain includes 12,500I
square miles in the Missouri River
basin and $4,000 square miles in
the Columbia.
The main Job of the forest
service is keeping the land COW
cred with grass and trees-safe
from erosion and it's worst enemy,
fire.
Preventing erosion calls for
careful supervision of numbering
operations so the forests will be
kept in perpetual supply and
rented pastures must be checked
closely so they will not be over
grazed.
There are nearly so billion
board feet of saw timber in the
region. The livestock range in
the region covers 885,055
acres. rented out to stockmen for
summer pasturage.
Fire fighting and fire preven-
ton are the hard jobs. The forest
service has to buck both man and
nature to keep its trees and grass.
Only Three Intentional.
Lightning caused 1,001 of the
regions 1926 annual fire average
between 1945 and 1949. Smokers
accounted for "a, campers added
another 38. Railroads were blamed
for 35. debris burning started 10
and II were caused by numbering.
Only three were Intentionally
caused.
The forest service figures the
annual timber loss from fires is
81 $1,450.000 And it costs the forest
$2,084,255 to fight and prevent
fires.
During peak fire periods there
may be as many as 1000 extra
firefighters on the payroll, and
there have been times when 6,0OOII
extra were used.
The fire fighter death rate
averages two year, but a 1949l
tragedy topped all disasters thei
forest service knows about.
Fifteen young parachutistsl[
jumped to fire near Helena, and
were caught in rugged country
when the wind changed. Twelve
perished in the rocky hills of
Mann Gulch.
The actual fire fighting costs
the region about half a million
dollars a year. and about ST, $780,
600 is spent on fire prevention.
1t takes a lot of equipment to
handle all the jobs the forest
service does.
Region l has 1858 miles of
telephone line, 16 radio networks,
1.130 pack mules and horses and
uses 10 airplanes. The forests
are crisscrossed with 10000 miles
of service roads and 30,746 miles
OF trails.
The entire cost to Uncle Sam
for running this region a year is
$7,009,624 But the forest service
takes in more than half that
much a year $3,746,727.
Access Roads Needed.
Timber sales bring in a little
over So million, and grazing fees
account for about half a million.
, Land use permits and water
power rights are good for another
$4,000.
Last year the service sold just
under 300 million board feet of
timber Hanson says if he had
more funds to build access roads
to timber stands, sales could be
doubled and yet the yield sus-
tanned.