By K.E. Kimball
It sometimes happens that people have an interest at stake in certain matters and do not know it. The question of consolidated schools comes up for decision in a certain community. Perhaps the childless couples cannot see that they have any interest in the matter so they fail to support the proposition and the school goes elsewhere. Presently there are children in these families, and the school is at a distance. It is the same with forest protection. There are those who think, because of their business or place of residence or for some other reason they have no interest in the growth of new timber crops. The city man says that it is a rural problem and let the farmers settle it. Presently, he wakes up to discover that because the value of forest lands has depreciated he is obliged to pay a smart increase in taxes.
Twice in the last six months the writer has been called by telegram to Moore county to investigate forest fires which had become so frequent and severe as to indicate the need of prosecutions for the violations of the state forest fire laws. In his examinations the writer found that forest fires often burned for days at a time unattended or were fought only when they approached some set of buildings or somebody’s fence. It is apparent that except for a few persons, no one cared what burned as long as it is not his. Eight or 10 days at a time, devouring flames were destroying potential community wealth.
Counties all through the eastern part of North Carolina are complaining that the tax rate is high and that county revenues are hard to raise. Some lay it to the road program, some to the schools and some to the unbusiness like methods of the county commissioners. Civic improvements cost money and reckless officials can waste money but the big reason why tax rates have risen in this section is not the civic progress of the county, but the depletion of county wealth as represented by the great areas of forest land that have been harvested of their timber and have not been allowed to reproduce the new timber crop which alone can return these lands to their place as productive factors in the county’s economic life.
Some individuals have done what they could in the way of forest protection. They have not made much impression on the forest destruction in the county at large. They have not converted any considerable number of persons, if any, to the idea of forest conservation. Individual, scattered effort has failed as it always fails and the money so spent, except as it has protected private property has been money wasted. The “let George do it” spirit has been fostered and cooperative community spirit has remained dormant. There is no recourse open to the people of Moore county for the prevention and supervision of the wealth destroying forest fire except to organize themselves into a forest protective unit. In other counties in this section of the State, under the leadership of the State Forest Service, this has been done with the result that forest fires are becoming less and less in evidence, and the forest wealth of these counties is increasing. Out of 3 million acres in this section under protection by the State Forest Service, only 71,000 acres, or about 13 per cent, were burned over, during the last fire season. The average acreage per fire was but 181 acres, and the average damage per fire was less than $500. The average suppression cost of these fires was $3.84.
The fire season of the last six months has been the worst on record for this part of the State. The above record covers 397 fires and is a splendid example of what can be done by a well organized and well led protection force toward the prevention and suppression of the fire that has robbed our people during the last 25 years of nearly as much wealth as is shown on the county tax books today.
Moore county was not without some attempts at fire suppression as before stated. Reports are available for that part of the county within about a 10-mile radius of Pinehurst. Somewhere about 80,000 acres lie within this protected area. Between January 1st and April 1st, 26 fires were suppressed in this area. Nearly 8,000 acres or nearly 8 per cent were burned over averaging 238 acres per fire. The damage done totaled $330,000 or about $723 per fire. The suppression of these fires cost $364 or about $14 per fire. If this record as to acreage burned and damage done is true for the rest of Moore county, and it is so more or less, the total area burned would exceed 25,000 acres and the damage done would be a very large figure. The fact that the figures and the average suppression costs are so much larger than similar average figures for the organized counties simply shows how expensive it is for Moore county to be without forest protection. It also proves how fruitless and expensive it is for scattered individuals to attempt community wide forest protection. The loss of property values in Moore county for the last 25 years due to forest fires is provably several million dollars. If this destroyed property was on the tax books now, as most of it would be in some form or other, there could be a material reduction in the present tax rate without any reduction in the county revenues. The loss of taxable wealth by forest fire is not often brought sharply to the attention of the average citizen. Suppose a fire sweeps across a tract of young timber. Much of it is killed. A growth of perhaps 10 years is destroyed. The land is certainly not of the same value to its owner as before the fire. Probably he does not ask the county to reduce his assessed valuation. For this reason, some may say that the county has suffered no loss in assessed wealth and there is no loss in taxes. True for the moment, but what of the future, when that stand of young pine had attained the age of 20 years the value of that land would have at least doubled. Supposed that at that time the commissioners suggest an increase in the valuation of the tract. Can they make it. Not at all. The value is not there. This is the story of thousands of acres of forest land in Moore county. The wealth of timber growth that should be there to bear its share of the county burden is not there because repeated forest fires have destroyed it. This loss means more than a mere tax increase. Because of the decreased revenue producing power of forest land, which in Moore county is 86 per cent of the total land area, an increased tax burden is of necessity placed on every piece of productive property, and on every productive enterprise in the county.
The door stands open. Moore county can have forest protection if it wants it. Every acre of its 351,000 acres of forest land can be counted on to increase its value, under forest protection, at least $2 per acre per year for the next 25 or 30 years. Two dollars an acre annual production of timber means over $700,000 a year new wealth for the county. In 25 years, this should add $17 million or more to the county’s wealth.
The presence of this value in timber means more than an increase in total country wealth. It means the reviving of forest industries. It means an increase of population. It means new and greater markets for farm produce. It means the stimulation of all sorts of business the county over. It means anew inducement to the tourist because of the added beauty to the region and the added inducement to the sportsman, because the natural cover for game has been restored.
If you want forest protection, tell your commissioners so, and they will find a way to get it for you.
From the front page of The Pilot, Vass, N.C., Friday, August 21, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073968/1925-08-21/ed-1/seq-1/
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