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Show Forest Fire Renort Made on Dixie Man-made fire incidents on the Dixie National Forest are following a downward trend which resulted In only two acres of lost forage during the recent fire season, the 1961 Fire Statis- sies Summary report indicated. j Fire occurences, however, were rated with the highest years, but acreage burned was low for the 1961 season. Lightning which I occured on 52 days during the months of June, July, and August, Aug-ust, accounted for the greatest amount of forage lost. A total of 65 fires were report ed during the season with a total to-tal acreage loss of 610. Of those amounts, 61 fires were caused by lightning and 608 acres which wore lost was attributed to fires started by this natural cause. Two of the four remaining fires sta.ted by this natural cause. The other two remaining fires were presumed to be started start-ed by smoking, one by campfire and one owing to an airplane crash. Two acres were lost In the four fire Incidents. The report further indicated that frequent storms during late summer contributed to reduction of loss this year. A three year comparison report Indicates that the 65 fires In 1961 were equal to 65 reported In 1960 but far below the 90 In the summer of 1959. In acreage burned the 610 was higher than In 1960 when only 55 acres were consumed by fire, but far below 1959 figures of 1102 acres lost. Assisting with the fire prevention pre-vention and fire control program this year was the use of a converted con-verted TBM Navy World War II bomber which was stationed at the Cedar City Municipal airport air-port during the fire period. This plane was converted and i-uipped with an aerial tanker to deliver 250 gallons of benton-ite benton-ite mixed with water to be used as a fire retardant The aircraft was used on six fires on the Dixie and detailed to several larger fires on the Challis and Salmon National Forests For-ests in southern Idaho. Some 3970 gallons of bentonite slurry was dropped on these six fires on the Dixie. The unit logged 67 hours during dur-ing the season. Broken down, the report shows 38 hours In fire detection de-tection service, 12 hours for re-connassance re-connassance of burning fires, eight hours in dropping bentonite and ten hours for research equipment equip-ment development and tests. The report further indicated that tractors were used ia two fires, tanker trucks and trailers were used in ten of the fire 1 occuranees. |
