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Show Fire Prevention Everyone's Responsibility Man-caused fires are a continuing con-tinuing problem facing the land managers of the Utah Department of Forestry and Fire Control, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Man-agement, and U. S. Forest Service. Ser-vice. Dixie National Forest Supervisor Super-visor Jack B. Schumate stated that even today nine out of ten forest and range fires are man-caused. Putting these fires out costs the taxpayer thousands of dollars each year. In reality, suppression costs are just a part of the taxpayer's loss. Damage to campgrounds, fishing streams, forage, timber stands, and watersheds wa-tersheds also contribute to the total loss. Rehabilitation of damaged resource values is expensive, and, in some cases, impossible. In an attempt to reach the public with the fire prevention preven-tion message, use is made of television, radio, newspaper, posted signs, displays, personal person-al contacts, and Smokey the Bear. Use of Utah's wildlands is increasing. When people venture afield to enjoy the wildlands of Utah, forest officials of-ficials hope they are careful about discarding cigarettes and leaving campfires unattended. unat-tended. Public land-managing agencies, agen-cies, such as the Forest Service, Ser-vice, attempt to make people fire conscious. Being fire conscious con-scious is one thing, but being aware of your responsibility is another. The fire laws of the State of Utah clarify the responsibilities of the individual indivi-dual citizen. Discarding flammable flam-mable materials, such as cigarettes, ci-garettes, leaving a campfire unattended, or causing a wildfire wild-fire are misdemeanors. Persons Per-sons causing a wildfire are also liable for damages, plus the cost of putting the fire out. Persons commiting a misdemeanor mis-demeanor are subject to a $299 fine andor six months in jail. Being careless with fire could certainly detract from a vacation. vaca-tion. This spring has been unseasonably unsea-sonably cool and moist. Although Al-though snow pack remains at elevations above 9000 feet, the vegetation at the lower elevations eleva-tions is lush. The arrival of normal weather conditions will result in a rapid build-up in fire danger. While vacationing vaca-tioning on the public wild-lands, wild-lands, the individual citizen should be aware of the current cur-rent fire danger conditions. Being aware of the wildfire potential should encourage the vacationer to take adequate ade-quate precautionary measures to prevent a wildfire on our wildlands. ''We need the help of the public in preventing forest and range fires," states Supervisor Super-visor Schumate, "we also need their help in reporting and putting fires out. Only a combined com-bined effort by 4she general public and the local fire control con-trol agencies to prevent, report, re-port, and control forest and range fires will result in the conserving of our wildland resources. |