main system in order to do that. Otherwise it would get into the domestic supply.

San Francisco does have places where they use that, and many other areas, by putting fireboats on the wharfs and pumping from them into the pumpers on land. That is quite commonly used where you have available water supply.

Mr. SAYLOR. That would work for a comparatively short distance close to the shore?

Mr. HEIDNER. That is correct.

Mr. SAYLOR. But where you get into areas such as you have described as being 14 miles away from the city boundaries, you would have a hard time doing that. Is that right?

Mr. HEIDNER. That is correct.

Naturally, in the heavy brush areas it is impractical from a financial standpoint to run mains into an area where there is very little domestic use. Those areas you may have to streamline for a mile or 2 miles, but that would be just about the maximum you would dare get into a territory of that type.

We do many time lay lines to support tankers and so forth, but you have a limitation there very definitely.

Mr. SAYLOR. Thank you. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there further questions?

If not, thank you very much, Chief. We appreciate your taking the time to come down. Your testimony has been helpful and informative.

Mr. W. B. Carter, chairman of the Watershed Fire Council of Southern California.

Could you make your opening statement in the remaining 15 minutes and then return tomorrow for questions?

STATEMENT OF W. B. CARTER, CHAIRMAN, WATERSHED FIRE COUNCIL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Mr. CARTER. I would be very happy to, Mr. Chairman.

I have a prepared statement, but I was not going to give it out today as I have a couple of corrections to make on it. If you would

like it now, I can tell you what the corrections are.

The CHAIRMAN. You go ahead and make your summary statement and deliver the statement tomorrow.

Mr. CARTER. I am going to make the statement from what I am going to give you.

The CHAIRMAN. Summarize it and deliver the prepared statement tomorrow.

Mr. CARTER. The first portion of this statement will be written, and I will pass these out tomorrow. They will contain a statement of the economic situation in southern California, number of residences, and so on. You will have those, and I will answer questions on them. Most of those have been covered by previous testimony. So I am not going to bother with them now.

The first table I have on here is in connection with the southern California fire plan, the 10-year program of adequate protection for the national forests of southern California.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you go further, would you tell us a little more about the Watershed Fire Council of Southern California so we could identify you and your background and activity?

Mr. CARTER. Yes.

The Watershed Fire Council of Southern California is a citizens' organization made up of representation from areas representing the four southern California national forests-the Cleveland by the San Diego study group; Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties by the tricounty group representing the San Bernardino National Forest; the Watershed Commission of Los Angeles County representing the Angeles National Forest; the Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties representing the area of the Los Padres National Forest.

The watershed fire council is a coordinating group, coordinating the activities of those four southern citizen groups. I am the chairman. The organization operates by its minutes, and therefore I could be deposed at any regular meeting of the organization.

A program to provide adequate standards of fire protection for southern California national forests has already been developed. This program reflects actual needs of the United States Forest Service. It was prepared at the request of, and has been fully adopted by, the Watershed Fire Council of Southern California and its member groups.

It calls for the expenditure of $2,375,000 per year over and above regular appropriations provided for fire protection in southern California during fiscal year 1954, for 10 years to provide sufficient numbers of yearlong fire-fighting crews and other personnel, the purchase of new and badly needed fire-fighting equipment, building of fire trails and breaks, construction of additional fire crew camps, water stations, and other structures, building of heliports, and putting into effect preplanning programs and other projects of a fire-prevention and presuppression nature.

The table you will have tomorrow will give you the breakdown for the four southern California forests, showing the operation and maintenance, the capital investment parts of this program.

On operation and maintenance the dollar estimates for operation will employ, train, equip, and house 750 vitally needed additional firemen.

On capital investment, the dollar estimates will permit the construction of the firebreaks, roads, trails, water developments, and heliports vitally needed to enable the increased forces to operate effectively to provide adequate protection. These increases will also permit the foresters to complete the preplanning required on all areas to facilitate the prompt control of fires which are not controlled during the initial attack.

The 10-year plan has been implemented in the manner shown by the next table. If we are to get even minimum protection for our national-forest lands the appropriations must be brought up to the 10-year plan total at once. The figures from the Angeles Forest illustrate the point.

The table will show the Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres, and San Bernardino services and the helicopter project. It shows from 1954 the regular appropriations, and then the regular and special appro

priations for 1955, 1956, 1957, with the total of $900,000 of extra appropriations that have been given to the southern California forests.

The next table will be a tabulation showing the fire-control expenditures on the Angeles Forest for 11 years from 1946 to 1956, and it will show the total number of fires by the year. It will also show the total area burned. It will show the cost of prevention and increased suppression, and also the cost of fighting those fires.

The figures will show that $4,318,727 was used in the cost of prevention and presuppression. The cost of fighting these fires was $4,212,907.

These figures in no way reflect the tremendous loss incurred above the cost of control in flood damage, structures, water, recreation area, and human suffering.

I would like to point out, too, that the table will show within the last 3 years-1954, 1955, and 1956-when we began to receive additional appropriations, that each year in the past 3 years the amount spent in the cost of fighting fires was less, which the table will show. Maybe 3 years is too soon to say we are gaining, but at the moment the indication is that we may be gaining on the problem.

Also, the next table states the problem which is further aggravated by military-caused fires, especially aircraft. It gives you a table from 1950 on the cost of suppression of military-caused fires.

We e are not being critical of the problem, but just to show you it is part of the job and it is part of the thing we have to face in southern California-the aircraft.

The problem is receiving attention at this time and steps are being taken toward a solution.

I might say that the agencies in the Federal Government, those who are fiying the aircraft and controlling the flight of those aircraft, are working together on a sound basis to try to eliminate some of these causes.

Of course, you can see a jetplane crash in some of the inaccessible areas, which I believe you flew over, would certainly cause quite a fire problem.

The next statement has to do with one of the basic things that we think is necessary in the protection of our forests.

The Watershed Fire Council became aware of the inability of the Forest Service to fill positions, and instituted a study of this problem. While this study is not completed, we have already found that glaring difference of salaries, working conditions and opportunities exist in southern California between the Forest Service and other fire agencies.

Then we have a table of comparison between the Forest Service salaries from GS-2 and the Los Angeles County salaries.

As you can see, as has been stated by the people this morning, with the close proximity of these fire agencies, certainly differences in rates of pay become quite an outstanding problem.

This is merely 1 table of 1 instance in the fire service of the question of salaries. I have some other figures I would like to read into the record now, if you want me to. Or I can do it tomorrow. The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead with it if it is not too extensive.

Mr. CARTER. I qualify myself on this stand as being a merchant and rancher, businessman, if you will.

I have made some preliminary studies as to labor costs in relation to comparable figures of the Forest Service. The information that I gained here was from the department of employment. I will use Edwards, which is an Air Force installation close to where I live.

An unskilled warehouseman, untrained, gets $2.11 an hour; and a laborer, unskilled, gets $1.94.

A fireman starting at Edwards is an S-4. He works a 60-hour regular pay week, but he puts in 72 hours. Therefore, he has an additional 12 hours' pay which he gets for his work. He has a shift differential, and his take-home pay is around $100 a week.

In order for a man in the Forest Service to get a comparable wage with that, he would have to be somewhere in a GS-7 or higher position which my knowledge on the GS series would indicate is in a pretty high bracket of income as far as the Forest Service is concerned.

The firemen at the North American Aviation plant where North American has their own firemen start at $1.81 to $2.11. This is just a fireman, not an engineer or skilled fireman. He works a 40-hour week, has time and a half for overtime, and shift differential. His take-home pay is around $100 a week.

The union scale in the area—and this is in the area of Angeles where we have competing people living and working on both sides where we can compare wages; we find the unskilled construction worker, union scale, $2.50 an hour; truckdrivers from $2.50 to $3.25 an hour.

Using the plant situation, we have the Pacific Coast Works: labor $2.27 an hour. They work a 40-hour week. They have no skilled requirements when they start. They have company benefits and night pay extras and overtime.

California Portland Cement laborers, unskilled, start at $1.88; work a 40-hour week; have time and a half overtime.

The United States Rubber Co. who has a test base in the area, have drivers. Their salaries start at $380 a month with company benefits. Local drivers, that is merchandise deliveries, unskilled, their total pay is $350 to $375 a month.

Skilled workers in television repairing, radio, washers, things of that nature, go from $2.25 to $3 per hour as a general scale, depending upon their abilities.

I have had occasion to go into some of our national forests and talk with some of our people up there, talk with some of the people in the Forest Service. I would like to make a little comment.

I talked to a man in the Forest Service who was in charge of many thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and responsible for the lives and safety of his crew. He had the responsibility for protection and public relations with the citizenry, and he was getting less money than I pay our delivery man on an unskilled basis, and we have a fast turnover in that particular field.

I think one of the important things, as we become acquainted with our people in the services, particularly in the low-scale field of the forestry service, we find a living condition where it is almost impossible for a young man to enter this field if he has any ambition as far as marriage is concerned, because so much of his time has to be spent in the camps. A young man certainly has very little incentive to acquaint himself with the service and join our Forest Service when he

does not have the benefit of the chance of marriage and setting up a home, where he has to spend so much time in the Forest Service area. Then, of course, the problem on your year-round work where your Service gets good men, they train them, and they spend much of our tax dollars in training these men and bringing them up to the point where they are workable and usable crews in the fire season, and then they are gone, lost to us, and are not back the next year.

I would like to say a word on research. Research is something of great importance to southern California. We have had and supported research on quite a large scale.

The watershed council requests your consideration on these primary points:

One, adequate appropriations to implement the 10-year plan; Two, a complete study of salary schedules, living conditions, hours worked, and benefits for the Forest Service personnel;

Three, an expanded and accelerated research program in the field of fire prevention and control, including: (a) heavy equipmentcats, 4-wheel drive tracklaying tankers, transports; (b) fixed wing and helicopter aircraft; (c) hazard reductions; (d) fire retardance; (e) small tools and equipment, fast couplings, light hose, et cetera.

I believe that, very briefly, gives you a picture of some of things I would like to bring to your attention, and the other things are written in the testimony.

(Mr. Carter's prepared statement follows:)

STATEMENT BY W. B. CARTER, CHAIRMAN OF THE WATERSHED FIRE COUNCIL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, AN ORGANIZATION MADE UP OF CITIZEN GROUPS REPRESENTING THE AREAS OF THE FOUR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NATIONAL FORESTS: THE CLEVELAND, THE SAN BERNARDINO, THE ANGELES, AND THE LOS PADRES Southern California is subject to an acute mountain watershed fire problem of the most hazardous nature. A problem found in no other part of the world today and threatening no greater potential loss to life and property.

The conditions creating this situation exists during any season of the year but becomes most acute with the beginning of the summer months and continuing well into the winter season. Hot desert winds combined with extremely low humidity turn southern California forest and watershed cover into tinder-dry fuel ready to ignite into a holocaust at the slightest spark.

Loss of timber, watershed and recreation area added to the staggering cost of suppression is followed by erosion by wind and by water. Floods which can have a greater threat to life and property than fire creates the necessity of spending staggering sums of money by local, State, and Federal agencies.

More than 6 million residents are from 70 to 100 percent dependent upon the controlled runoff and natural basins within the protective boundaries of the Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino, and Cleveland National Forests to provied a natural supply of water for home, business, industrial, and agricultural uses. Southern California must conserve every drop of its local water and protect and retain the vegetative cover of its watersheds in order to do so.

The economic stability of southern California is dependent upon water and the protection of its watersheds. Its financial support to the national economy could be greatly curtailed by losses occasioned by fires and floods.

Recreational values which cannot be measured by known formulas also must be considered.

Local agencies have been put under a tremendous load because of the failure of the Federal Government to keep pace with the rising costs of fire protection in southern California.

Citizens groups have been formed in all of the national forest areas of southern California to study and recommend adequate methods of fire protection.