| OCR Text |
Show Decrease in Fire Loss Reported On Dixie National Forest for Past Year A report issued this week by the Dixie National Forest indicates indi-cates that a decided trend of improvement has been made on tie national forest in regard to man-caused fires. A decrease In the number of man-caused fires was indicated on the report and in addition the number of acres burned during dur-ing the season from June through September has been reduced over a long-term period. Lightning was the primary cause of fires on the 1,800.982 acres of the Dixie Forest, ac- counting for 47 of the 53 flrea during the tire seasoi. .:om June fciiii'J'irt September. .Man-caused fires accounted for 11 percent, including three from smoking, two from campflres and one incendiary. Downward trends In losses In total acres, were also Indicated over a long term basis, although an Increase of six percent was shown In 19G2 over 1961. Again it was lightning that took the larger toll. During the season 76 acres succumbed to fire, of which 68 acres were attributed to fires caused by lightning, leaving only 8 acres lost by man-caused man-caused fires. Records of the past four years Indicate the comparison on the reduction of number of fires and also acres burned. Number of fires: 1959, 90; I960, 65; 1961. 65; 1962, 53. Acreage burned: 1959, 1102 ac; 1060, 55 ac; 1961, 610 ac; 1962, 76 ac. Fire pumper trucks located at four ranger districts of the national na-tional forest were put into play during the fire season. Five pumper tanks were used on 15 occurences during the season and on one occasion trackers were put to use. ArSfcl detection and reconnaissance reconnais-sance was also used with a total of 59 hours of flight time logged during the four month period. The fire chemical mixing system and storage tanks and having all mixing and plane delivery items on a ready bails during the season. No aircraft vi stationed at Cedar City, however, had the need tot chemical fire retardant drops on potentially big fires arisen aircraft would have been dispatched from Salt Lake City to operate from the Cedar City base, the report stated. |
